


The Enigma

by GhostSam



Category: Supergirl (Comics), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Domestic Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Ex-Marine Kara, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Injury Recovery, Kara and Alex are work buddies, Kara is not Supergirl, Married Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Protective Alex Danvers, Protective Lena Luthor, Slow Burn Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, The DEO is a newly formed organisation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:55:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 90,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27369889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostSam/pseuds/GhostSam
Summary: The Department of Extranormal Operations, otherwise known as the DEO, is a newly-established agency formed by the government in order to prevent crimes by and against threats which local enforcements are unable to face on their own. Dr. Alex Danvers and Captain Kara Zorel are two of the many who have joined DEO. But with different ideologies and different perspectives of the world, will they be able to work together or will they be dragged down by their past baggages?ORA crime drama set in an alternate universe revolving around Alex, Kara and Lena, in which Alex and Kara did not grow up together and Kara may or may not have her powers.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 120
Kudos: 267





	1. 1. New Day, New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone. This is my first story here on AO3. I have started reading Supercorp fanfics this year only and I have loved the stories in this fandom. This is my attempt in adding something to the fandom. 
> 
> This is set in alternate universe where Kara did not grow up with the Danvers but instead lived with Clark (I still refuse to believe that Superman would leave someone just like that) before joining the army. Alex completed her studies and became a doctor instead of joining DEO early on in her life. This is the story of two different people coming from two different backgrounds in an attempt to be free of their demons and do some good in the world. 
> 
> Happy readings ya'll.
> 
> Disclaimer: All the Supergirl characters used here are owned by the CW. This fanfiction is for entertainment purpose only.

Chapter 1: New day, New Beginnings 

Alex was feeling excited. Not because she had finally been able to get the job she wanted, but because she was now going to do something that would help change the world, however small that change maybe. Being a daughter of two brilliant scientists, Alex had always dreamed of following in their footsteps of changing the world and humanity for better. This is why when she was asked to be a part of a new program regarding aliens, just after she completed her PhD from Stanford, she wasted no time in saying yes. The following months, she trained hard to become a semi competent combatant in hand to hand and gunfight so that she would not hinder others whenever she was in the field. Finally, after a year she was approached by a Mr. J'onn J'onzz, who was the head of this program, she got a call to arrive in National City to officially become a part of DEO, which stood for Department of Extranormal Operations. 

This is how Alex found herself standing in front of a black building in downtown National City trying to find a entrance inside. She looked at the address again, to make sure that she was in the correct place. Confirming the address, she took a huge breath to calm herself. She did not want to mess up on her first day on this job just because she was excited. Making sure she had everything needed, she went to the side door and knocked thrice on it. After a few moments of waiting, the door slid open on its own revealing a hallway. She sent inside where she was met with another door. This time there was a well built man standing guard at the door. He looked at Alex with little interest before speaking in a gruff voice, "State your name and purpose."

  
"Alex Danvers, here to report for my first day of duty."

"Do you have the proper identification?"

"Yes it's all here." Alex said removing her backpack and providing everything she was supposed to.

The man looked at all the papers with a critical eye before saying, "Seems good enough. Welcome to the DEO Dr. Danvers. You are requested to wait in the lobby for a few minutes. Someone will come and show you around soon. I hope you have a good first day." 

Rearranging her things back, Alex nodded at the man before going in the lobby. Unsurprisingly, it was completely empty. She sat on a nearby bench and started reading a magazine which was in the nearby stand. After a few minutes, a woman in black uniform came towards Alex.

"Dr. Danvers, I presume. My name is Susan Vasquez. I will be your guide for today."

"Nice to meet you Ms. Vasquez."

"Just Vasquez is fine ma'am. Let's get you set up properly so that you don't have to get harassed everyday by Dave outside. Please follow me."

Alex picked her stuff up before trailing behind Vasquez as they crossed another hallway. She was led to a large bullpen looking hall where many people were already working. Vasquez then showed her the different conference rooms, a training area, a gun range, different laboratories and the cafetaria. After the short tour, she found herself standing in front of Pam, the head of HR. 

"Whatever you do, don't lose your badge. There is enough work going on already. I don't need any additional workload. Your computer id and password would be available at your workstation. For your gun and other field material, you can talk to the quartermaster Hix. Now get out of here, I need to do the same for 50 more people." she said hurriedly before shooing Alex out of the room before she could even thank the woman for the badge and information.

"Don't take it personally, she has to work harder than everybody because she has no one to help her right now. The other HR members are not starting anytime soon." Vasquez told seeing the confused look on her face.

"Oh! It's no problem at all. It just took me by surprise."

"Do you need to go somewhere or can I show you your workplace? I think you would quite enjoy the labs. The tech guys were busy whole week setting up the new equipments. I am told that it may be the most advanced lab for bio-engineering in whole country."

  
"Lead the way then. I would love to get behind the microscope again. I didn't hate the field training but I think that the labs will always be my home."

Alex's office was very spacious. There was a desk near the back wall of the room with a large window behind it. The room also had a cupboard which was large enough to probably store all her clothes and on top of it all, it had a comfortable looking couch too. But the thing that made Alex feel proud was the name plaque which was on top of the desk. Dr. Alex Danvers, Head of Bioengineering and Medical Science. She put her backpack down on the couch and made her way to the window.

"If you want to change anything in here you can tell me. It might take sometime but it would be done."

"No there's no need for such. It is very nice." Alex replied.

"All right then. Oh! before I forget, there is a meeting with the director in an hour. Everyone has to be present. It would be in conference room two. If you lose your way, just ask anyone. They would be happy to guide you. I will see you later ma'am."

Vasquez left after this leaving Alex alone in her office. She logged on her work computer and did a few things in her office and the hour was soon up. She made her way to the conference room. There were a couple of people sitting here and there but no meeting had started yet. She took the first seat on the right side and patiently waited for the director to arrive. Soon the room was filled and J'onn J'onzz, director of the DEO came in. The room fell silent on his arrival, waiting for him to begin speaking.

"Hello everyone and welcome to Department of Extranormal Operations or just DEO. This is our first official meeting and I would like to begin by introducing myself. For those who don't know me, my name is J'onn J'onzz and I am the director of this newly formed facility. You all are going to work under my and by the chain, the government's supervision. Regarding the DEO, the government had been trying to open a alien only related department for a long time before finally moving on this project. It is no surprise to any of us, mainly due to a god like being named Superman, that aliens and metahumans have been living among us for a long time. However, there had been no program or facility that only catered to things which are related to them. The police cannot contain the dangerous ones and often the voice of innocents is silenced just because they are not humans."

  
"Thus to help the other authorities to only focus on humans, the DEO has been formed. We will only deal with the cases which are related to metas or aliens. All of you have the authority to take over any case from local agencies if non-humans are suspected as victims or perpetrators. Now I want to make clear that we are just an experimental agency. The higher ups will have no qualms in shutting us up if we don't provide proper results. You all have been chosen for a reason and I expect best from each and every one of you. This is an opportunity for all of us and we can succeed if we put our heart and soul in it."

  
"I will be meeting with the head of each department today to further clarify their jobs. If anyone has any question now is the time to ask it." After a few moments of silence, he added, "All right then. The meeting is dismissed. Good luck to everyone."

Everyone started filing out of the room. While Alex was gathering her things, J'onn told her, "Dr. Danvers, meet me in my office in 10 minutes. I would like to discuss a few thing with you."  
Alex nodded and went back to her office to drop off her items. Ten minutes later, she was standing in front of the director's desk. J'onn was engrossed in a file. After a few moments, he looked up from his work and smiled at Alex.

"Please Dr. Danvers, take a seat."

Alex nodded and took seat in front of him. She had no idea of what to make up of the man. He had a fatherly gaze and didn't look intimidating at all in office attire surrounded by files. 

"I hope you are settling fine. Do you have any questions?"

"Yes sir. You said that we can overtake any case from the local agencies but do they even know that we exist? I thought we were supposed to be a secret organization." 

J'onn nodded at this and replied, "Yes, we are secret from the public eye, but the captains of each precinct have been informed of our presence. They have to cooperate with us on alien related cases. However, I would like to tell you to not flash your DEO badge in front of anyone who doesn't know we exist. You would be provided an additional FBI badge to help you on any case related scene."

"All right then. How are the field related operations supposed to work? I assume that I won't be alone but considering we don't really exist it would be not probable to bring the whole force anywhere."

J'onn smiled at this. "In an ideal world you won't have to go in field at all. However, we are currently short staffed and everyone has to play multiple parts to keep the wheel turning." he said before looking through his files. Finding a thin red file, he placed it in front of Alex before adding, "We are deploying a partner system for the foreseeable future. Any cases given to you will be solved by both you and your partner. Go ahead, take a look at yours."

Alex opened the file. There was a picture of a smiling blonde inside with her name written below it, Captain Kara Zorel. The next few pages were usual information about her time in the marines and different feats and achievements. Alex found it surprising that the woman was not present in the meeting earlier. Every other important person in the building was there

"Captain Zorel is one of the best marine currently in service. She has agreed to take up the rank of head of field operations. I have met her personally a few times and I am sure in saying that she is probably the best candidate for the rank. She is a delight to talk to." J'onn had a fond smile on his face as if remembering a conversation with the woman.

"Why was she not present in the meeting sir? Is she already on some case?"

"Oh no no. She hasn't joined the department yet. Some family emergency and personal issues. She had a rough last tour and her rehabilitation has been going a little slower than expected. I hope that you both would get along fine. She might join us later in the month. I have no clue exactly when as she hasn't given a date yet."

'Great, I am partnered with someone who has started slacking before the work has even started.' Alex thought in her head before schooling her features and replying to J'onn, "We will get along just fine as long as she doesn't hinder my work efficiency."

J'onn almost looked disappointed at this answer. However his tone was calm and kind when he spoke again, "We have also set up a computer for you in the hub as that is the place where we are usually going to spend most of our time. I would call you as soon as we have something to work with. That would be all for today Dr. Danvers."

Alex nodded towards J'onn before moving out of the room deep in her thoughts.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\--One Week Later-- 

Alex was frustrated. She was working on a homicide case which was possibly committed by a rogue alien. However, there was such a lack of evidence on the crime scene that it was difficult to pin down anything to anyone. On top of that, the NCPD was really getting on her nerves. They weren't happy when she told them to hand over the case and the evidence and information collected still hadn't arrived at DEO. To prevent herself from snapping at Winn, the resident tech guy at DEO, Alex had barricaded herself at the medical lab and was performing DNA test on the different samples obtained to find any irregularities. She was in the middle of reading the results when the doors to the lab opened. 

"I told you to not disturb me Winn. I really would like to be alone at the moment." she told the intruder in a raised voice.

"Oh! I am so sorry. I just asked someone where you were and I just made my way here. I am sorry for assuming you would be free. I never wanted to disturb you from your work. It's just I wanted to meet you since it's my first day here and no one has enough time to tell me what I'm supposed to do. I just me with the director and he told me you are my partner and I should talk to you. Oh shoot! I forgot to introduce myself. I mean you already know my name but still, I am Kara." a voice rushed all of this in one breath.

Alex had stopped looking to result halfway through the ramble and now was looking intently at the speaker. Kara was not what she had assumed the woman would be. She had thought in her mind that being a marine, Kara would probably be stoic and precise in her work and thoughts. Time to throw that thought out of her mind because the person standing in front of her was the exact opposite. Dressed in light blue shirt, khaki trousers and a pink cardigan, hair tied back in a single ponytail with eyes as blue and deep as oceans, she looked ready for a picnic for elderly rather than someone who was starting work at a undercover government agency. Another thing which she observed that Kara was very young. When she had seen her picture, she reckoned that it was an old one, which was clearly not the case here. Seeing that Kara was getting fidgety by the lack of response, she decided to stop her train of thoughts and got up to greet up the woman.

"Dr. Alex Danvers. Nice to meet you." she said politely thrusting her hand forward in greeting. The smile she received in response could have lightened up the whole room on its own.

"Captain Kara Zorel. The pleasure is all mine." she replied shaking Alex's hand.

"You are right on time captain. I was going to head to the precinct to annoy the captain about the evidence sharing. Want to tag along for the ride?"

"Sure. And you can call me just Kara."

"Ok Kara. Call me Alex then. Let me grab a few items from the hub and we will be on our way to the eighth circle of hell."  
Kara chuckled at this before replying, "Lead the way Alex."

Kara quietly followed behind Alex. On the way to hub, Alex noticed that Kara was hobbling on every third or fourth step. Her face didn't show any pain but it was clear as day that she had trouble walking properly. Filing this information to revisit later, Alex went to their shared workstation in thee hub and took the case file before remembering that Kara doesn't even know anything about the case. 

"Let me catch you up with the case quickly. A man Jacob Cobbs was murdered in his home three days ago. He was 31 years old and had no immediate family. We suspect that an alien did this because of a note on the crime scene in a yet to be decrypted foreign language as well as alien DNA found in the nails of the victim. We have very limited access to the evidence and I have yet to get the permission to visit the apartment." she summarized the last three days as briefly as possible.

Kara nodded at this and sat on her chair. She looked around her workstation as if confused about something. "Why do we have desks here? Don't we have separate offices? I am sorry, I know this is not case related but this has been bugging me out."

"It is because your 90 percent of the time in DEO is going to be spend here only. The offices are just glorified storage lockers." Winn spoke appearing out of nowhere. He looked at Kara and was dumbfounded for a moment. Gathering his wits, he spoke, "Captain Kara Zorel, I presume. I am tech from the Winn department." while extending his hand forward.  
'Seriously', Alex thought in her head. Unlike Kara who was smiling, Alex did not found anything remotely funny about the situation. Before she could shoo away Winn, Kara spoke up.

"Hello tech from the Winn department. You can call me Kara. I would be correct in assuming that I would need to come to you if I have any trouble with computers."

"Yes absolutely, you can come with me anytime you want." Realizing how weird that sounded, Winn quickly backtracked, "I mean you are beautiful and I would like to see you. Would you like to have coffee with me?" he rushed out in a breath puffing his chest out.

Alex had her face hidden in her hands. She wished the Earth to swallow her whole. A few people were now looking in their direction, patiently waiting for the event to unfold. She felt bad for Kara, who was being subjected to this on her first day of her work. Despite being caught in this position, Kara still had a smile on her face.  
"I am honestly flattered but I am already happily married ." she said while putting her left hand up where a small but beautiful ring sat on her ring finger. "I am not opposed to being friends though, if you want to."

"S- Sure. Friend's coffee. That's exactly what I was asking for. I will tell you when I'm free." Winn floundered as nearby people sniggered at him.

"As fun as this was, I am going to steal away Kara. We need to head to the 76th precinct. Don't you have work to do Winslow?"

"Yeah work. I was just going back to work. Sure." He ran away quickly before Alex could properly threaten him.

"Don't mind him. He is usually nicer than this. I don't know what came over him. If this would have happened to me I would have punched his lights out." she said taking the keys of their assigned car from her desk drawer before heading towards the parking.

Kara hobbled behind her, a smile still lingering on her face. "Don't worry, I didn't mind that at all. It was so embarrassing for the poor guy though. I felt bad for him in the end."

They arrived at the parking lot before Alex asked again, "So what's the lucky guy's name?"

"Who?" Kara asked tilting her head looking confused.  
"The name of the dude whom you are married to." Alex clarified opening the door and settling into the driver's seat.

Kara sat in passenger's seat and for the first time there was no smile on her face. She looked intently at Alex before taking a huge breath and replying in a quiet tone, "There's no guy. I am married to a woman."

Alex was struck speechless for a moment. She was lucky she hadn't started driving or she would hace stopped the car in the middle of the road. She glanced sideways and saw that Kara was looking at her with a hopeful face waiting for her reaction at the revelation. 'Don't say anything stupid Alex.' she thought in her mind before starting the car and talked in the same tone as before.

"I am sorry Kara. I shouldn't have jumped straight to assuming that you were married to a man."

Kara was still looking at her cautiously. "You don't have any problems, right? I would prefer breaking our partnership in the early stage rather than you saying anything inappropriate about my relationship or private life later."

'Had this already happened to her? Poor girl! No wonder she didn't feel secure with Alex at the moment.' Steering the car out of the parking, Alex took a moment to properly collect her thoughts before speaking.

"I have no problems at all Kara. It's your life and your decision to do what you like. I promise you that I am not going to judge you ever for this." she replied in a serious tone. There was an awkward silence in the car and Alex didn't like it. So to lighten the mood she playfully asked, "So what's the lucky girl's name?"

Kara breathed a huge sigh of relief and the smile was back on her face. "Lena. Her name is Lena." she replied in a dreamy voice.

"How long have you been married?"

"Just three months actually. But we had been dating for like 3 years before that, so yeah it was long overdue in my book."   
Alex could practically see the happiness radiating from Kara. They both fell into comfortable silence. Kara was drumming her fingers on the dashboard singing some song under her breath. Alex saw her looking towards her as if wanting to ask some question but decided against it. 

"You can ask what you want. I won't bite. Nothing too personal though. I will exercise my right to remain silent on them."

"Are you from National City? I arrived here yesterday only and so far the city seems very welcoming. I am from Metropolis." Kara asked looking outside the window at the city zooming around them.

"Not really, but my parents live in Midvale which is like one hour drive from National City. So I have spent a lot of time here. My dad and I used to do city trips once every month so I am comfortable in saying that I know enough to not lose my way."

"That's cool. My parents also did that but they were very busy so it only happened once per year or two. I spent most of my time with my aunt. What do your parents do?"

Alex hesitated in answering this question. Her dad was killed by members of an anti-alien group because they found out that he had helped Superman in his early days. Alex had initially blamed him for being so reckless at first but as time passed on she found that he wasn't to blame at all. He loved the person she was and always supported her in her endeavours. Her relationship with her mom however, was civil at best. She never really could become the best in her eyes. No matter what she did, there was always some fault, always a better way to do it. After her father's death, they had only interacted a few times. 

"Scientists. Both of them." she said in a dismissive tone.  
"Really! My dad was one too. I wanted to-"

"Kara, I don't want to discuss our life story here. We are co-workers not friends. We should remain focused on the case." she said in a slightly raised voice. Kara gave her a sad look and started looking outside the window. The next 15 minutes to the precinct were spent in an uncomfortable silence. Once parked, they both got out of the car and Alex took the lead. Reaching the reception, she flashed her faux FBI badge.

"Agents Danvers and Zorel of the FBI here to meet Captain Nash. We had an appointment at 1pm."

The receptionist looked up at her before looking at Kara. For the first time Alex noticed how different they both looked. She was clad in black and grey business attire whereas Kara was all colors as if going out on a leisurely stroll in a park. No wonder she was looking at them suspiciously.   
"I'll need her badge too."

"Oh sure!" Kara replied cheerily before taking out her fake badge from the back pocket and showing it.

"You can go in." said the receptionist after taking long a look at Kara's id.

Entering the captain's office on the second floor, Alex quickly wanted to get started with her work. Captain Nash did not care about it. He looked like a stereotypical cop shown in the movies, a dude in his 50's with a round belly and half bald head. He looked at Kara for an uncomfortable amount of time before asking them to take the seats.  
"It's a pleasure to see you again Dr. Danvers. And who is your wonderful friend?" he said in a clipped tone.

"Captain Kara Zorel. I wished I could say I was happy seeing you but considering how you have been hindering my partner's work, it feels more of a unnecessary chore right now." Kara replied still having a smile on her face. Although it looked more forced now.

Captain Nash scoffed at her words. "Listen her kid, your friend has been trying to make an alien case out of a normal homicide. You can't prove that it wasn't done by a human being and I have the authority to say no to your new little Christmas group as long as no ET's are involved. Now instead of trying to steal the case from my detectives, you better go and find your own and let us work here."

"There is evidence of non-human DNA at the scene sir, as well as the note which goes further to prove that the victim had contact with aliens. Even if a human committed the crime, the case will fall under our jurisdiction." Alex said in a frustrated tone. Honestly, they had been going at this for two whole days now and she was getting tired of his bullshit. If he had been cooperative, they could have cracked the case by now.

"You don't have any jurisdiction till I say so. I have read the manuals sent. You can't do a damn thing and if you don't stop snooping around the scene, I will have you arrested. Our CSI has done his thing, there was no DNA or anything like that on the scene. So I'll ask you to leave right now if you don't want to spend sometime in the lockup." he replied raising his voice.  
Kara quietly got up from her seat and went to the door. She drew all the blinds so that no one could see what was going inside the office. She turned around with a hard look on her face Alex had not seen yet.

"I am sorry but I didn't want to create a scene larger than necessary. Captain Jonathan Nash, you are under arrest." she said taking the handcuffs lying on the table nearby.

"What?" Both Alex and the captain exclaimed.

"You heard me. You are under arrest for withholding evidence vital to the case from the right authority. As well as being under influence while working but we will get to that later. Do you want to say anything before I read you your rights?"

"You- You can't prove anything. I'll have you arrested for threatening a police officer. Yes, I'll do that exactly, just you wait." he almost screamed at Kara whose face was still as impassive as ever.

"Oh really! So if I go out and ask a Detective Chris Powell about the results given by your CSI, what will I get? I am pretty sure that the file clearly states that there are foreign, possibly even alien, elements present which he was unable to identify. And if I open the bottom third drawer of that very fancy looking cupboard, I am pretty sure that I won't find holy water there." Kara replied in a very calm tone. "Also here's you denying that there is anything unusual at the crime scene." she said taking her phone out of the back pocket before playing the recording she has done of the whole meeting.  
All the color had drained out of the Captain's face. He tried to open his mouth to retort back, but was rendered speechless by Kara.

"Now you see, I can make this recording go away and we can both pretend that none of this ever happened. All you need to do is two things. First, give Alex all the case files and evidence your detective have gathered without any further delay. If you deny this option, I will have no qualms in dragging you out of here in handcuffs in front of your whole precinct." Kara said in a no-nonsense voice. 

"You won't arrest me. You are just blackmailing me to get your work done. I won't stand for this. I am going to call officers right now."

"Go ahead. I would love to prove you guilty in front of an audience. Also, let me tell you first that these two are just the tip of the iceberg. I can have you detained on multiple other crimes. Do you think your assistant " 

"Yo- You can have them. Just take the damn files. I will tell Powell to give you everything outside right now." he sputtered after a few moments.

"That's just what I wanted to hear. You chose the right option." she said smiling again before directing her attention back to Alex. "Let's go. We have a lot of work to do."  
Alex was stunned by this display. She had come prepared for a deal in which this could be a joint case between DEO and the detectives. Never in a hundred years she thought that she would get the whole damn case in less than 10 minutes. She nodded silently at Kara before following her outside the room.

"What- What was the second thing you needed me to do?" a quavering voice asked as they were heading out the doorway.

"Transfer out of here. Or better, retire. It is up to you what you want to do. All I know is that I don't want to see you around here next time we have some work to do here. I have found enough to put you in jail by spending 10 minutes in your office. Do you honestly want me to try putting you away? Oh! You have 10 minutes by the way to tell your detectives to pass the case." she said looking him directly in eyes before walking out of the door leaving a dumbfounded man behind.

They both went to their car outside. Kara sighed deeply before leaning on the car seeking support for standing. "I don't like doing this at all. It's all so tensiony and weird whenever this happens. Why can't everyone be happy and helpful to each other? The world would be a happier place if everyone just tried a little." she said kicking the gravel out of the road.

"What did you just do up there?"

"He would have always stuck his foot in our way. It is best if he is gone in the start otherwise his idiocy could have costed some innocent's life."

"How do you know he would transfer? On that thought, how did you know all those things you accused him of? I just thought that he was an asshole. Never did pick him up for someone who drank during duty." Alex asked her.

"All the clues were there Alex. On the way to his office, I passed the detective's desk who had the file just laying there. Remember when I was tying my shoelace, I did it so that I could have an extra moment to look in the file. It was easy enough to figure out. Regarding the drinking, I think you didn't notice but his assistant had two mouth fresheners on her desk. Now it is not proof enough as some people like to have different flavors available. However when you enter his office you can clearly see the scratch marks near the keyhole, possibly created when he was locking his door and in his drunk state couldn't properly put the key in. On top of that, there were 4 locked drawers in the cupboard but only one looked like as if it was opened on a regular interval. Why would keep something that you need everyday under a lock and key in the cupboard behind you? Combine all these three things and you can come to the evaluation that he drinks on duty." Kara replied before looking at Alex and further adding, "He would definitely transfer because he knows that these are barely the tip of the iceberg. I have enough to confidently say that our Captain also loves taking bribes."

"What?" Alex looked at Kara horrified at the implication.

"The guy in the sitting area was asking to meet the captain as if he personally knows him." Kara sighed. "Look Alex, I can tell you exactly how I figured it out but what is the point? He would be gone soon and hopefully someone decent enough would replace him." They were interrupted by two detectives who had come to hand over the case files. Kara thanked them before wincing in pain and quietly slipping inside the car. Alex sat on the driver's seat.

"You are a bloody genius. That was so amazing. Can I learn it too?" Alex asked curiosity taking over it. 

Kara chuckled at this. "This is your first time in field Alex. You would get better at reading the environment as more and more time passes. Just try and look around. I don't do anything special except being highly observant."

"So what have made of me? Am I a good person?" Alex asked her turning the car on.

"Good and bad are subjective for different perspectives. Also I didn't really want to invade your privacy so I didn't really try with you. You seem like someone who would tell me stuff on her own terms so yeah, I got nothing on you. The thing is, I am very ignorant in my general life. Lena always makes fun of me for that. She says that it's cute to know that I can figure out a crime scene in a few minutes but couldn't for my life figure out what's happening to everyone around me. She says that it's like a mental state for me. I only become hyperaware when I am surrounded by mystery of crime." she said laughing at her last sentence.

"So we got all the files. What's the next step?" Kara asked looking at Alex.

"Go through everything we have and try to decipher the weird language. You ready for a long night?" she replied.  
Kara nodded before looking out the window again humming a different tune. Alex could not understand the woman sitting beside her. She looked so young sitting there, her feet on the seat with her chin resting on top of them, looking at the buildings zooming around them. However, it was clear that she was a force to reckoned with and everyone should think twice before messing with her. Well, she would figure her out someday. All she knew at the moment was that her life was going to be very interesting.

Weird but interesting.


	2. A new threat?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex meets someone new. Some fluffy Supercorp. Alex and Kara make a startling new discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!  
> This chapter briefly introduces Lena and Lucy before ongoing with the investigation. This is a short one. I need to properly set up the pieces before I can move them.  
> Minor TW: There is a brief description of a dead body. If someone is uncomfortable with it, just skip from first ***** to the next *****.

CHAPTER 2: A NEW THREAT??

Alex was confused. It has been three days since Kara had helped her get the evidence yet she was nowhere close to cracking the case. It wasn't for the lack of trying but rather she was hitting a dead end on all her leads. The message left behind on the scene was not decoded as they didn't have enough reference, the DNA results were as inconclusive as ever and nothing proved that Jacob Cobbs, the victim, had ever had any contact with any aliens. So as she was sitting in her office at 8:30 AM on a friday thinking about this mystery, she suddenly had an idea. She immediately called Kara and asked her to come to the DEO as soon as possible. 

Speaking of Kara, she hadn't seen a lot of the woman since their initial adventure. She wasn't at fault for that though, they both had different departments to run. She was friendly whenever they met. However that didn't seem much of a compliment, Kara was probably the type of person who would smile at you until and unless you did something very very wrong or stole her food. The scorching look she gave Winn when he casually took her fries was something she wasn't going to forget anytime soon. 

Alex slowly made her way out of her office and approached her workstation in the hub. As soon as she sat down, she was met with the sight of Kara coming towards her from the other direction. Today she was casually dressed in black and blue with no cardigans and a messy ponytail. Upon seeing Alex, her face took on a smile and she waved enthusiastically. Another detail Alex noted was that Kara was using a cane to walk around today. She knew that the injury was sustained when she was on tour, courtesy of the file J'onn showed her, but what she didn't know was how she got it. She didn't want to be insensitive so she had never asked what had happened. If Kara wanted, she would tell her on her own in time. 

"Bad leg day?" she asked when Kara was seated in her chair. 

"Ehh. Somedays are better than the others. My leg did not want to move today at all." she shrugged. "So what's on the agenda? I would love to just hang out but you don't really do that."  
Alex felt a little guilty for that. Kara had asked her to go to a nearby bar two days ago but she had shot her down. But she was stressed badly and knew that her stress and alcohol do not go well together at all. She was going to defend herself when she remembered something peculiar.

"Hey wait a minute. How did you come here so quickly? I just called you like 10 minutes ago." she questioned Kara.

Kara looked at her as if contemplating whether she was joking or not. "God you are really bad. Didn't you notice? I am living in the DEO. There were a couple of beds being unused. I borrowed them and put them in my office." she chuckled at Alex.

Alex narrowed her eyes at her, "Oh I am sorry. Not everyone has your level of cognizance." she replied sarcastically before becoming serious. "Why are you living here though? I thought you would be living with your wife in an apartment or home or something."

"That's the plan. She hasn't moved to NC with me yet. Some problem related to her research at Metropolis University. She is a professor of quantum physics." Kara spoke with pride in her voice. "She is coming here tomorrow and we are going to go home hunting. That's why I asked you to not call me on the weekend unless it was a case related emergency."

"Good for you. I don't think living a secret government agency is good for you. Now regarding the case, I think that I may have a lead." At the mention of this, Kara quickly sat up in her seat and gave Alex her full attention. "We are unable to find any alien with whom he had contact right. Now he did not have many friends he talked to, but who is one person that everyone talks to?"

"Dogs? I don't have one but if I did I would tell it everythi-", Before Kara could finish her sentence Alex cut her off. "Not a dog you dork. A therapist. Everyone tells a lot to their shrinks."

"Riiiiight. But isn't asking about a patient's records and conversations severely immoral and illegal?" She asked skeptically. 

"Yes it is. But this patient is dead and if we crack this case, we could prevent more murders. I am not saying to reveal his darkest secrets. Just something that would nudge us in the right direction. I know this is a very very longshot but even if we get one little lead, we could probably solve the case." 

"So where we going?" Kara asked after thinking a moment to which Alex replied, "Not we. You are going to the therapist. I have a meeting with the director. Someone important is coming in the DEO today and I am a part of the welcoming committee."

"I am taking Susan then. What's the name and address?" she sighed. 

"Dr. Henry Powells. He has a office on the 31st." Alex told her before thinking of something better. "Winn!! Come here."  
Winn shot up from his seat and was in front of them in the blink of eye. "Someone summoned me? I would like to tell you that my help comes at a price."

"I need you to mark for Kara the address of Dr. Henry Powells on the weird map you have." Alex said in a no-nonsense tone.

"Hey! It's a great invention." Winn defended himself before turning his attention towards Kara. "I'll mark the exact place so that you can see it in the GPS of your car."

"That's helpful. Thank you so much. I'll be off to find Vasquez now. See you both later." Kara said smiling at them before walking away slowly. Winn looked at her retreating form before sighing loudly.

"Why are all the good ones always taken? The guy she is married to must have done some great deeds in his past life."

Alex looked at him before bursting into a loud laugh. Winn looked at her as if she had grown two heads. His reaction only added fuel to the fire and her laughter got more loud. After a long time, she finally got herself control and started wiping away her tears. "You done?" Winn asked.

"Not really but I don't think that I can laugh any more." Alex replied still having trouble regulating her breath.

"Her leg seemed in a pretty bad shape today. You are a doctor. What do you reckon happened? Did she tell you?" He inquired.

"It's a spinal injury. And no, she didn't tell me anything and she changed the subject very quickly when I prodded her about it. I don't know much. Her file only tells that she was part of a hostage rescue mission which went seriously wrong. She was the only one who survived. Everything else is classified."

"Damn. I don't think I could even smile once a day after going through all that and she just makes it seem as if nothing bad ever happened." he sighed once again before going back to his work.  
Alex found it horrible to admit that she didn't even think of the possibility that all the smiles and cheeriness may be her coping mechanism. However, as Winn had stated, Kara made it very very difficult for everyone to know whether her reactions were genuine or faux. She decided then and there to look out for her reactions more minutely whenever she was around her to prevent her from becoming uncomfortable. She stood there for sometime before settling down on her desk and quickly became engrossed in her work.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was an hour later when Alex found herself walking towards the director's office. She knocked on the door and waited for the confirmation to enter in the room. Upon receiving a 'Enter', she quietly opened the door and moved into the room. There, she was met with the sight of a short woman in her full army regalia talking to J'onn. Upon seeing Alex, he smiled and nodded at her to take a seat. The woman looked at her from bottom to top before standing on the right side of J'onn's chair. He sat on the aforementioned chair before making the introductions.

"Alex, this is Major Lucy Lane, co-director of the DEO. Lucy, meet Dr. Alex Danvers. She is the head of our bioengineering department as well as a field operator."

"Pleasure to meet you." the woman named Lucy said stretching her hand forward. Alex rose to greet her. "Same here."

"You are assigned with Captain Kara, right?" 

"Yes I am. Do you know her from somewhere?" Alex inquired.

"It would be weird to not know her as I was her bridesmaid at her wedding." Lucy chuckled. "How is she doing? Last I saw her, she was still struggling a bit to adjust back home."

"I- I don't know honestly. It's only been a week and it looks like she is enjoying herself on the job. However, sometimes she gets all serious and somber but her cheeriness always returns as quickly as it goes. It's hard to understand what goes in that woman's head."

"Yeah it is. Don't worry much. She'll get better once Lena moves here. She always knows what she is feeling." Lucy said with a bit of envy in her voice. "Seriously though, if you are in a relationship, never ever compare yours to them. They are like mind-connected or some shit. It's sickening to watch."  
J'onn cleared his throat indicating that the meeting was going in completely different direction. "As interesting as it is to talk about our colleague's life is, we should start discussing the real reason this meeting was called. Major, if you will."

"You are absolutely right as always Sir." Lucy replied cheekily before looking back at Alex. "My job is to report about the progress of DEO to the higher ups. If you need any help from other agencies or the army, I am the one you should contact. Also, if there are any issues regarding any law or you are in need of a lawyer, feel free to contact me. I won't always be present in the base but you may be able to see me if you are present in the right place at the right time." she finished with a dramatic flair.

"Good to know." Alex replied.

"Dr. Alex, I need you to brief us on your current case." J'onn asked calmly.

"It's a confusing one Sir. The criminal is extremely good at hiding his tracks which could mean that it is not his first murder. The DNA found has not resulted in any match with the database as well as the language left behind is practically impossible to decipher. Right now, Kara is gone to ask the victim's therapist some questions and see if we get any lead. Other than that, we have nothing at all."  
J'onn nodded at this. "Follow this lead but if nothing comes out of it, I need you to drop the case."

"But si-" Alex was interrupted by him. "No buts Alex. First thing you need to learn is that not every case can be solved in time. You need to be able to let go, otherwise you would always be thinking about the the various what ifs which would only lead to more and more stress. I am not saying that this case will not be solved. Just that it won't be solved by you too. Someone else will take care of it."

"You and Kara are two of the sharpest minds here. We can't afford you both to run around in circles for something which may be unsolvable. If you get something in two days, then sure go ahead and investigate. But if not, then I don't think that it is wise to keep spending time on this when you have already exhausted all your options." Lucy supplied from the side.  
Alex thought about this for a moment. She knew that they were going nowhere with the case and if this lead did not pan out, then they would only have dead ends left. She sighed and accepted their words. "All right. Two days. If nothing else then we would drop the case."

J'onn smiled and nodded at her words. Lucy however, had a shit eating grin on her face. "Now I am going to tell you something very important. Did you know that Kara loves kale?"

"What??" Alex asked befuddled.

"Yes, really. She may seem to love junk and fast food but she always loves to balance it all with kale. Infact, kale smoothie is her favorite drink. " Lucy replied in a serious tone.

"All right." Alex was still confused by the sudden change in conversation.

"Just bring her some. I am telling you she will like it." Lucy insisted. She looked at the time before adding, "Oh! I have kept you long enough. You can go back to your work now."  
Alex nodded and left through the door. Unbeknownst to her, J'onn looked at Lucy with a smile on his face. "Did you really have to do that?" he asked.

"Absolutely. I would love to see the look on their faces when they finally figure out what happened. Nothing is better team bonding than a few shared pranks. Trust me on this, Kara would love it. The prank, not the kale."  
"As you say Major. Now get serious, we still have a lot to do."

Alex thought about what transpired while wandering back to the hub. It was a surprise to her when Lucy mentioned Kara even though she should get used to it. A lot of people probably knew her, especially in the army, considering her impeccable records and a bright personality. She was not happy with them asking to drop her case though. But in a way, their line of thought was right too. She could not get afford to get fixated on just one. At least someone would still try to unravel the mystery. That was a big point which helped her in accepting to let go. She wished that Kara would come back with some good news.

Reaching the hub, she saw a raven haired woman sitting on Kara's chair. She was busy in her phone and was not minding the curious looks she was getting from people passing through. Getting closer, Alex thought that the woman belonged in a corporate meeting rather than a secret base. Her posture was straight and her clothes, which consisted of dark blue jeans and black blouse, made her seem a little imposing. Alex went and stood next to the woman hoping she would notice her arrival but she had no such luck. In the end, she had to revert to the classic clearing her throat to get the woman to acknowledge her. 

"Uhhhm. May I help you in some way miss?" she asked.

Green eyes rose up to look at Alex's face. The woman was strikingly beautiful up close. "I am sorry I didn't see you standing there. And to answer your question, no you can't. I am waiting for someone. You must be Dr. Alex Danvers I presume." she said smiling. There was a slight accent in her tone which Alex couldn't really place. 

"Yeah I am. Do I know you from somewhere? You seem familiar but I can't exactly place your face."   
"It is probably because you see my picture almost everyday." she said before showing her the photo frame kept on Kara's desk. In the picture, she and Kara were standing in front of the entrance of Disneyland; Kara's hands were around her waist and she was making horns above Kara's head. They looked really cute in the picture. The gears in Alex's mind started spinning and she arrived at the right conclusion just a moment before she got the confirmation. "Lena Zorel. Nice to meet you."

Alex was caught on spot by the woman. She quickly shook the offered hand before getting her bearings back. "Nice to meet you too. Why are you here though?" Realizing how rude that sounded, she quickly backtracked. "Not that you can't be here but Kara told me you were coming tomorrow. Also how did you get in the DEO by yourself?"

"Being good friends with the co-director has some perks." she smirked. "Lucy told me she was coming here and I just tagged along to surprise Kara."

Alex sat on her chair across Lena who was currently reminiscing looking at the picture. "Can you tell me where she is?" she asked furrowing her brow.

"I am sorry but no, I can't. She is doing something case related and you are a civilian so..." Alex replied calmly.

"Oh ok. I get that. I can wait." she said without any malice. 

Silenced dawned on their conversation after this. Lena returned her attention back to her phone and Alex started looking through her files. 

"Who designed this system? This is like 2 minutes away from a hack." Lena suddenly enquired.  
"I-I don't know."

"This is just complete shite. I can do some serious damage from my home in my sleep. Why are you guys even using this?"   
"Again, I don't know. I am bioengineering department. I don't understand half of the stuff the computer guys do." Alex replied honestly. "How did you figure it out though? I don't see any flaws."

"Well it's all fine from the surface. But when you start seeing the fine details, this whole setup has more holes than a showerhead. Do you people even want to remain anonymous?"

"How are you even figuring this out? I thought you taught quantum physics." Alex asked completely befuddled.  
"Computer science is my hobby. I love quantum physics the most though. That's why I decided to teach that over robotics. Now is there someone I can inform about this stupid system?" Lena replied nonchalantly.

"You too? I thought you would be the normal one." Alex mumbled.  
"What?" Lena asked curiously.

"You know, usually in a relationship one person is smart and other is just.. normal. Yet here you both are certified geniuses. Kara with her weird Sherlockian thing and you with your whatever." she sighed. She spotted Winn lurking in her peripheral. "Winn!! Get over here."

"Hello again Alex and a beautiful lady." He said walking towards them slowly.

"I'm married." Lena replied in a no-nonsense tone before adding, "I just wanted to tell you that your whole network needs some serious update. Right now it's just begging to be hacked."

"I know!! I have been working to increase the security 24/7. You should have seen it when I first came. I just told the director this morning that we need much more manpower to fortify the firewalls and you know what he said? 'I trust in you Winn, you can do this on your own. You don't need any help.' Unbelievable." he rambled quickly.

"I didn't get your nam-" Before he could finish the sentence, their attention was diverted by new arrivals in the hub.

Kara walked in slowly with her focus completely on a file in her hands. She didn't even look up before speaking, "Alex go get geared up. I think I have something. Winn I need you to track down this person or alien, whatever they may be."

"Kara, there is someone here to meet you." Lena said in a very soft tone.

Kara's head snapped up so quickly that Alex was sure if she did the same, she would have gotten whiplash. She looked shocked seeing Lena standing there before the biggest and most genuine smile yet broke on her face. She quickly covered the distance between them and caught Lena in a bone crushing hug.

"Too tight darling." Lena complained but neither of them let go of each other. Kara took a step back after sometime before pulling Lena in for a kiss. Alex cleared her throat to let Kara know that there were other people in the room too. She pulled back blushing and completely flustered. Lena giggled at seeing Kara in this state.

"Sorry. I got a little carried away." Kara replied scratching her head.

"No problems." Alex reassured her. Understanding that the two spouses needed some time alone, she suggested, "I'll go get geared up and meet you in your office in 15. You can debrief me then, okay?"  
Kara nodded enthusiastically before dragging Lena towards her office. Alex smiled at their antics. She turned her attention towards the lockups and found a dumbfouned Winn looking in the direction in which they just went. "Get to work Winn. You need to find that person."

"I thought Kara was married." Winn spoke in a rather high pitched tone.

"And she calls me slow." Alex mumbled. "She is married dumbass. To Lena."

"Oh! She is interested in girls. That's why she declined my offer to date."  
"I don't think that's the case dude.""

Let me have this Alex." Winn mumbled and walked away.

After twenty minutes, Alex was slowly walking feeling giddy that they finally had something in the case. Approaching Kara's office, she overheard two voices.

"You know that they don't really work Lee. What's the point in taking them?"

"The painkillers do work Kar. I know they make your brain fuzzy and everything but if they help you with the pain then please do take them. Try to see this from my perspective. Tell me this honestly, do you think you would really be able to see myself in pain constantly when there was a medicine for it?" Lena asked in a very patient and calm tone.  
"No." Kara replied with a very measured tone.

"Okay, out with it. What are you afraid of?"  
"I-I don't want to be useless Lee. Everyone else here is in peak of their body and me, who is supposed to be the head of field operations, can't even walk straight. What if one day they feel like I am worthless and decide to throw me out of here?" Kara said in a quavering voice.

"Hey! None of that. You know you can take every single person in the building before they could even blink. And why do you ever think you are useless darling? What about that brain of yours? Hmm? That one look brain is going to help so many people. And do you know how I know this?" "No." "It is because I know you Kar. You are never going to give up and I know it in my bones that Kara Zor-el, one of the biggest geniuses in the goddamn universe, is not going to be stopped by a fucking spine injury. You'll change the world Kar. All you have to do is believe in yourself."  
"I will try. I promise." 

Alex felt as if she was not supposed to hear this conversation. But if she moved in the office now, they would know that she was standing there. So, she quickly backtracked and walked way louder this time. Reaching the door, she saw both of them sitting on the couch. Kara's head was on Lena's shoulder and Lena was kissing on the crown of her head. Seeing Alex, Lena squeezed Kara's arms and got up.

"See you later darling." she said pecking Kara on the lips. She nodded at Alex before walking out of the room. 

"You okay?" Alex asked seeing that Kara's mind was still somewhere else.

"Huh? Oh yeah. I'm fine. Let's go to Winn. He would have gotten the location by now." Kara replied. "You want the full details of the meeting or is a tl;dr fine?"

"You can be brief. I am more interested in the lead rather than the story behind it."

"Okay. Our victim was a long time patient of Dr. Henry Powells. He had a few problems namely depression, anger management issues etc. However, he himself refused to come back to therapy two months ago. He was saying something about finally finding a true purpose in his life and how he was going to change the world with like-minded people like him. That was the last time our doc saw him."

"Furthermore, there is also one suspect, Austin Woods. The vic used to talk extensively about how he is a vermin and I quote, "Filth infecting Earth." I did a preliminary check on this Austin guy and he is a difficult one to get hold of. One inactive ID on facebook, and no pictures of any kind on any social media." Kara told her on the way back to hub.

Alex saw Vasquez, Winn and J'onn standing around the giant desk/computer in the middle of the room. They both joined them before Kara took the lead. "Winn you're up. What do we know about Austin Woods?"

"I believe that you are right about him being extra terrestrial. No social media, no hospital visits ever, no proper employment and get this, his driving license has a modified picture of a football club player. I was able to track his address by his credit card." He said revealing the address in the computer.

"Good work Winn. Alex, you and I are going to have a talk with him. Nobody goes to this length if he is not hiding something big. Vasquez, get Daniels and meet me a block away from his house, right here." Kara opened the map before marking a spot in there. "No one will take any aggressive action towards him until and unless I say so. This could go very bad very quick."

On receiving nods from all the parties, Kara turned her attention back to Winn. "I need you to pull out all the cameras in the surrounding area. Confirm that he is at home." Finally she turned to J'onn. "Sir, permission to use them if things go too bad?"

J'onn sighed. "Try not to make them bad enough. But if there is no other option, yes you can use them."

"Thank you sir. All right everyone, you know your jobs. Get to it. Let's go Alex."

"Lead the way cap." Alex replied, following Kara to the parking lot. "Use what?" she asked reaching the car.

"Hmm?"  
"You asked the direction for permission to use what?" she clarified.

"I guess you'll see for yourself if it comes to that. Don't worry, I don't think we'll need em. I just wanted to make sure I was allowed to. We don't have enough information. For all I know, the guy might be a 10 feet alien with impenetrable skin." Kara replied getting in the passenger's seat.  
Alex was suspicious of the reply but let it go. They had more things to worry about right now. She started the car and drove to the rendezvous point. There they met up with Vasquez and Daniels who both were somehow already there.

"Daniels stay here. You're our backup. Alex, Susan on me. We are walking from here. Don't want him to see a suspicious car and start running." Kara ordered.  
All of three of them slowly made their way to the house. There were only four other houses in the street. Alex thought that it was a pretty good place to hide if you wanted to. While walking , Kara voiced her concern.

"I am having a bad feeling. An unstable guy joins something like a cult, ends up dead in his own apartment. Something just feels wrong here."

"Focus on one thing Kara. We are here for Austin, let's just bag him and get out of here." Alex replied.

"Dr. Danvers is right ma'am." Vasquez supported her.

"I know. Let's get this over with."

They reached the small house at the end of the street. Kara looked around a bit before knocking on the door.   
"FBI. Open up the door sir."

No reply came. She knocked again after sometime without any success. Seeing that she was getting nowhere with this, Kara tapped in her headset.  
"Flamebird here. The house seems empty. We are going to force our way in."

She looked up at Alex and Vasquez. "You two go from the front, I'll take the back." Vasquez nodded and took the position. Kara further added to Alex, "You can stay back if you want. I can send in for Daniels right now."

"Nah. I didn't train for over 7 months just for it to go to waste." Alex replied strongly.

"Good then. Stay on comms." She said and walked towards the back door.

*********************************** 

Alex assumed her position at the door. "I'll take point ma'am. Stay behind me." Vasquez told her. She nodded and waited for Kara.

"Breach on 1." Kara's voice came through the headset. "3, 2 ......... 1. GO!"

Vasquez kicked the door down and entered the house with Alex at her back. The first thing she noticed in the house was the smell. It was so appalling and repulsive that Alex almost puked right there. Vasquez wasn't so lucky. She quickly went outside to throw up.

"Kara, can you tell what's smelling so bad?" Alex asked.

"Yup. You wanna come to the living room, first door left. I would like to warn you that it's awful."  
Alex gathered her courage and went to first door on her left. The sight in front of her was straight out of a gruesome horror flick. There was a weird green fluid everywhere and Kara was standing in front of what looked like body. Inching closer towards it, she finally found the source of the smell. A body of an alien, around 6'1, was lying near the couch. Kara was standing above it, looking for clues. Seeing the state, Alex almost went out of the house. However, she swallowed her bile and started doing her job.

"Multiple lacerations on stomach, cuts on arms and bruises everywhere. He was most likely beaten to death." she concluded after her initial assessment of the body.

"Not to death. He was left to bled out after the assailants left." Kara said in a somber tone. She stood up and went to look around the house. 

"Alex." Kara's voice came from a room after a few moments. "I think I know who did this."

Alex walked in the bedroom and saw Kara looking at the wall. Seeing Alex, she stepped aside allowing Alex to see. There was a message written in black paint. 'This is his punishment for murdering one of us. We are the Agents of Liberty. We are one.'

"What the hell?" Alex whispered reading the message.  
"Probably the cult I was talking about. Who is this message meant for? Let's go. We need to call the authorities on this." Kara replied and went out. Alex went back to check on the body.

"Vas, call an ambulance. We found dead body." Alex called in.

"On it ma'am."

******************************

Before she could do anything else, a loud static came through her earpiece. 

"Alex, get out. GET OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW!" Kara said in a panicked voice.   
Alex quickly stood up and started running back to the front door. Before she could reach it, a loud explosion happened somewhere and Alex was thrown off balance. However, instead of hitting something solid, she found herself in the arms of Kara who hastily shielded her. The next moment, the blast engulfed them and Alex was knocked out cold.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pain. The first thing Alex noticed when she opened her eyes was pain all over her body. She felt as if she had been hit by a truck, then thrown out of the fifth storey. She tried moving but her body refused any movement. Looking around she saw that she was in a stationary ambulance whose back door was open. Kara was sitting on the edge playing with the backdoor. 

"Ka- Kara" she called out in a hoarse voice which was new to her ears.  
"Hey there. Take it easy. You were just in a blast." she said in a soft tone. "Nurse! She is awake."

"Wha-What happened?"

"The whole house was rigged. It was supposed to blow up as soon as you enter into the bedroom. But someone tampered with the fuse, I think. Want to hear what I think?" she asked looking at Alex.  
"Sure."

A nurse came to check-up on her while Kara discussed her theory. "I think that the message in the bedroom was written when they killed him. However, they later figured out that if someone found it, they would have too much attention on them. So they rigged the house to blow up when the front door was opened. They did a really bad job of it though. It almost didn't blow up."

"You look fine. We would still recommend you to go to the hospital for a complete checkup." the nurse said.  
"How are we alive? You look like you weren't even there." Alex questioned.

"We got lucky. We both were close to the door and the explosion just knocked us out the building. I think I fell on top of you, sorry if it caused pain." she replied scratching the back of her head.

"No apologies. You saved my life. I owe you bigtime." Alex said.

"You know what? You go ahead to the hospital and get checked up, then go home. I'll take care of the paperwork and all other things. I'll see you Monday. Okay?" Kara said smiling.  
"Sure." 

As Kara moved away, Alex understood one thing about her. She might be a genius, but she still had to learn how to lie. Because no matter what excuse she was told, she knew in her heart that they shouldn't be alive. Close to the door her ass, they weren't anywhere close to it. So why did Kara lie to her?

The question that plagued her more was did it really matter if she lied? She saved her life. She should get pass for hiding her secrets, right? Well she didn't give it much thought. She would get to the root of both the mysteries, Kara and Agents of Liberty, in due time.

All in due time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the chapter was a little all over the place. The introductory chapters are usually the most difficult ones. Things should get a bit smoother from here on out.
> 
> Next chapter has the first meet of Sanvers along with a new case. It should be up by next weekend due to it being around 8k words.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you all had a good time. Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.


	3. New friends or foes?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara deals with a new case as things get messy. A few new people make appearance and Kara makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again. Kinda took me a while to write this but I am satisfied with the final result. Hope you all have a lovely time reading this. 
> 
> This chapter is Kara's POV instead of Alex. Starts with some Supercorp before delving into a new mystery.
> 
> Also, thank you all for the hits and kudos.

CHAPTER 3: NEW FRIENDS OR FOES?

Kara was elated. Well, she had seven other emotions running around in her head but the most pronounced at the moment was joy. She was feeling at peace after a really long time. Life had taken a turn for good since she joined the DEO. Even after two months, she still enjoyed every day at the office. Susan was a joy to be around, Winn was becoming a trustworthy friend, J'onn was a like a wise old oak tree in the children's stories and Alex was someone whom Kara admired. Her past scars still reared their heads on a few days, but they were becoming more and more easier to handle with the continuous passage of time. 'Time heals all wounds' was something she learnt when she first arrived on Earth. Personally, she never believed in the phrase. Some wounds are too big to ever heal. But it did get better.

The biggest reason for her happiness though, was Lena. She had finally moved to National City just a few days ago, taking up the job of teaching at the NCU. The two months without her were difficult to navigate. She still had a hard time believing that someone as genius, kind-hearted and passionate as Lena had agreed to marry her. Kara used to hate her luck for putting her through so many hardships and trials. However, all her complaints went out of the window as soon as she met her. She still thanked Rao every day to let her live her life with an absolute gem of a person. 

They both had bought a small home near the forest on the outskirts of the city. Kara was skeptical about the location at first, both DEO and NCU were quite a good distance away, but one look at the property and she was completely sold. The house had a spacious living room which was attached to the open kitchen and a guest bedroom. The first floor had two bedrooms, one of which Kara had turned into her painting studio. The thing which had helped finalize her decision was the garden in the backyard, which was covered in gorgeous flowers and plants, courtesy of the previous owners. It was something straight out of a movie, with various butterflies and beautiful insects flying around. One look at the view and Kara had already planned numerous picnic dates with Lena. The neighbors were also quite welcoming to both of them. No one batted their eyelashes at them for being married to each other. In the end, they both were quite happy with the purchase.

If Kara could say anything to her past self a year ago, she would have told her to hang on with all her might and wait for the storm to pass. Also, to stay away from assembling furniture. Because right now, she was trying to build a small desk cupboard in her living room, and she had no clue of what she was doing. The instruction manual was making everything much worse. No matter how hard she tried, something was always falling off or not fitting. Her mood of happiness was quickly being overtaken by frustration.

"Leeee!!! Help me." she whined loudly.

"Coming darling!" Lena replied, slowly walking down the stairs. Seeing Kara looking at the jumbled manual with furrowed brow, she couldn't stop herself from laughing. Kara gave her a not-amused look before focusing back on the task at hand. 

"Scoot over. Can't believe youngest ever member of the science guild in the entire history of Krypton is getting her ass handed to her by furniture." Lena said still laughing a bit.

"It's cause the instructions make no sense. How in Rao's name is that part supposed to go there?" Kara mumbled handing over the manual to Lena.

"Let me look. You wanna get on the breakfast then?"

"Sure. At least it won't literally suck happiness out from me. Are pancakes fine?" she said getting up.

"Ohh Pancakes!!! Bring me some ASAP." 

"As you wish Queen Lena." Kara replied bowing down.

Lena snorted at this. "Dork."

"Never said I wasn't one. Pancakes order coming right up."

Kara walked into the kitchen and started working. Her cooking skills were far from as good as that of Lena, but she wasn't too shabby. She put on some music and got into her flow of making pancakes. Half an hour later, both the parties had done their respective works and were enjoying breakfast on the couch.

"So what's been going on with your work? Anything interesting?" Lena enquired eating her share which was much smaller than that of Kara.

"Nah. It's pretty boring nowadays. A few alien scuffles here and there. In all honesty, boring is fine. I'll take it over murders and explosions any day." Kara said before adding again. "I did find one guy who thought Superman is the new incarnation of god."   
"Huh? I wonder what Clark thinks about that?"

"Oh we are so not telling him anything about this. He will get a big head for a few days." she said with a smile on her face. "What's going on with yours?"

"Same old. I do have much smaller number of students here though. Not even half of what I am used to. It does make sense because NCU is not really a school where you would go for a degree in physics, but still it's a bit weird for me."

Kara could listen to her talk for days. One word from Lena and all the thoughts swirling inside her mind came to a screeching halt. Her Irish accent only enhanced the charm she had on Kara's ears. She knew that Lena had always tried hide her accent since being adopted, so knowing that she was comfortable enough around her to revert back to it subconsciously made her feel all giddy and fuzzy inside.  
"What are you thinking now?" Lena spoke poking her sides.

"Hey! No poking." she replied playfully before poking right back. Lena narrowed her eyes at her. "You just poked me."

"Such blasphemy!! I did no such thing fair lady." Kara poked her again. Before she could utter another word, Lena launched a full assault of fingers on her. A few moments later, it had evolved into a full fledged tickling fight and Kara being more ticklish among them, was losing horribly.

"I yield. Stop please!" she requested Lena with tears in her eyes due to excessive laughing. In their little skirmish, Lena had ended up on top of Kara, with Kara lying on the ground flat on her back. The atmosphere in the room changed quickly as the emerald green eyes met ocean blue. Kara quickly covered the distance and captured her lips in a passionate kiss. In a surprise to no one, Kara loved kissing her. Despite kissing more times than anyone of them could possibly count, she still felt swept of her feet whenever their lips connected. Lena's hand found their way inside Kara's shirt but before it could become more heated, a familiar ring of the phone interrupted the moment. 

Kara groaned loudly listening to it. "Why now???" she said to no one in particular.

"Happens sometimes darling." Lena told her hiding her face in Kara's neck.

"I could just not pick it up. Maybe they would understand that I don't want to talk right now." she conspired. 

"Just pick it up Kar. I don't like it destroying my eardrums. And what if it's from someone important."

"Fine." Kara stretched her hand to reach her phone which was on the couch. She really didn't want to pick it up but seeing Alex's name she decided that picking up would probably in her best interest. In the past two months, Alex had become a good friend. She always had her back and never told her off for being a little weirder than humans. Kara had thought of telling her about her real identity, but she did not want to do it without consulting with Lena first. And considering that this conversation hadn't come up in the two weeks since Lena had moved to National City, Alex was still in dark. 

Kara accepted the call. "Hello Alex. What's up?" she was still a bit surprised by the call. In the two and a half months of knowing her, she had called her a total of 3 times. Two of them were because she was late and other was to confirm something on a case.

"You took your time picking up the phone." Alex snapped. Kara heard her take a deep breath before continuing, "Sorry for that. I am just stressed out. A body has been reported in an abandoned junkyard on Burlough Street. The media is already on the scene and some stupid police officer already blabbed about the body being of an alien." she sighed. "Just get to the crime scene quick. I need to call Lucy." The call was cut off.

Kara inhaled a deep breath before exhaling slowly. All she wanted to do on this Saturday was to spend time with Lena and help in preparing a bit for Thanksgiving, which was in two weeks. But now she was being called away and she felt guilty for leaving Lena alone on weekend. 

"Work?" Lena asked quietly.

"Yeah!" Kara sighed. "I am so sorry. I know I promised to stay and spend time with you. Maybe I can make up some excuse to not go?"

"What case is it?"

"Homicide. Seems pretty messy. Press is already on the scene." Kara explained.

"You should go Kar. I don't think either of us would be able to sleep properly if we chose to spend time on a date when you could have been helping somebody. It's not a problem at all."

"You aren't mad, right?" Kara asked nervously fidgeting with her hands.

Lena got up from her position pulled Kara up before seating them both on the couch.

"Not at all. Just come home safe and sound. Oh! Also, before I forget to tell you, Sam is coming to visit with Ruby on thanksgiving." 

On surface Lena looked calm and patient telling this to her, but as someone who knew Lena better than anybody, she noticed a very underlying tone of sadness in her voice. And she couldn't blame her to be honest.   
"I will make it up to you." Kara said honestly kissing Lena for as long as her breath allowed her to.  
"I know. I love you."

"I love you too. See you later. I will try my best to make it in time on the evening so we could go out for a while." Kara spoke taking the car keys.  
She slowly walked outside towards her car before kissing Lena one more time and driving away from her home. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kara's first impression of the crime scene was, 'What a mess.' There were local press running all around the police trying to make them spill whatever they knew, there was a small gathering of people who had come to watch the event unfold live and on top of that Alex was telling off someone about work ethics. She quickly made her way towards Alex to properly assess the situation. 

"I have told you again and again, the press should not be anywhere near us. We need to do our jobs for fucks sake." Alex shouted at someone who quickly nodded and ran away.  
"Hey Alex." Kara said cautiously.

"Hello Kara. Welcome to the shitshow of the year. Try to keep your head down, I'll show you the scene in a bit. And try not to talk with any member of the press." Alex looked tired saying this.   
"Oh! Absolutely." she replied and started looking around to pass her time.

Her attention was grabbed by a young woman asking for interviews. She was shy and stuttering a bit, probably due to nervousness. Before she could really think much, her mind started analyzing the finer details. 21 or 22 years old by the looks, black hair, just started working as reporter, probably sent here because the publishers knew that no one was going to get a lot out of anyone and they didn't really need the story. This made her believe that she was probably with CatCo, as they had just broadened their journalism from fashion to other stuff and were still testing their waters in investigating journalism. 

What helped her stand out though was her dexterity. She was being told to go away by literally everyone, yet she did not waver. Although her excitement about the story was becoming less every time someone said no to her. Kara wasn't too covert in her reconnaissance though, as the young woman caught her eyes and started walking towards her.  
'You had to stare.' A voice sounded in her head. Kara ignored it as the voice was being pretty rude. 

"Hello! My name is Nia Nal. I am here as the representative of CatCo. Do you think you could spare a few moments?" 

"Uhh.."

"Brilliant. Are you with the NCPD?"

'Quick, start lying.' A voice which sounded suspiciously like Alex spoke in her mind. 'Just make up something otherwise Alex will murder you.'   
"No? No. I am not with the NCPD. I was just passing by. Yeah, I was jogging and saw the commotion and decided to check it out." Kara cringed at her own statements. 'Oh darling! That was the worst one yet!" Lena's voice mocked her.

"Hey-" she accidentally spoke out loud.

"Who are you talking to?" Nia narrowed her eyes at her.

"No one. I was just replying to the voi-" she thought against telling Nia about her hyperactive brain and the various voices which often talked around in her head.

"Anyway, if you are just jogging around, how were you able to get inside the sealed area vy the police? I don't think they started giving civilians access." Nia asked studying her.  
"I have a friend in the department. She wanted to meet me. That's why I am here."

"Ma'am, I may be a cub reporter, but you are not convincing a toddler with these lies. I just want to ask some questions, that's all." Nia asked taking out a recorder and a notepad.

Kara was becoming rather uncomfortable. Lying was never her strong suit and it combined with being put on spot was stuff of nightmares for her. Before she could stop it, her hands had started fidgeting with her sleeves as her mind thought of a way to get out of this situation.   
"Please ask someone else. My partner will murder me if she saw me talking to you. Please!" she pleaded.

Maybe it was the desperation in her voice, or her fidgeting hands which convinced Nia to have some pity on her. She closed her notepad and looked at Kara with slight concern in her eyes.   
"Hey no worries. I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable. I am sorry if I came on a little strong. It's just.. It's my first big story and I kind of want to create a good impression, you know." 

"I-I get that. I can't tell you anything anyway though. I just got here."

"No problems at all. I uh.. I want to be a big investigative journalist and cases like this could go a long way. But my superior is an asshole and I still haven't got anything from anyone around here. I guess it's not my day." Nia talked rushing through her words.

"Just keep on it. I believe you may get something." Kara spoke honestly. She was thankful to Nia for being understanding. She really did not think that a reporter would ever back away from questioning, but Nia seemed different from others. Every instinct in her mind told her that the person in front of her was a good person, despite spending such a brief time with her, and Kara believed in them. 

"Yeah... Seems pretty unlikely but I guess I have to keep trying. See you some other time. I am sorry I really didn't get your name."

"Kara."

"Nia. Nice to meet you." she spoke before she spotted someone and went to interview them.

Her mind was still processing what happened when suddenly Alex came up behind her. "Who was she?"

"Nia. She is a reporter from CatCo." she replied honestly.

"Seriously Kara. I told you not to talk to anyone from press. You did not tell her anything, right?"

"No, I did not. I just wanted to know her a little. Journalists can be pretty influential friends if hang out with the right ones."  
Alex snorted at this. "Yeah sure." she replied sarcastically. "Are you speaking from experience, or is it just optimism? Because every reporter I have ever come in contact has been a shitty human being."

"Hey! Don't be stereotypical. My cousin and his wife are reporters, and they are the coolest people I know."

"So, you are defending them because someone in your family is? I agree not all of them are assholes but 95% of them are. Do not let their inviting smiles fool you. They are like vultures." Alex defended her stance. "Let's go and check the crime scene."

"Nia seemed pretty cool though. She didn't even ask me questions once I told her that I don't know anything." 

"You seem like someone who is a good judge of character Kara. I am not going to tell you who to talk to and not. If she is genuinely a good person, then I think you are right about having a reporter in our corner." Alex told her leading the way.

They both arrived at a taped off area where a police officer was standing guard. Alex confidently made her towards him, dragging Kara behind her.  
"Alex Danvers and Kara Zorel of the FBI." she showed her badge. "I need to talk to the person in charge here."

The man looked at the badge uninterestingly before eyeing Kara in a creepy way. "She doesn't look FBI. Aren't you lot supposed to be dressed in black suits and everything?"

"And aren't you supposed to be looking out for your eyes? Keep them somewhere respectable before I pop them out of their socket." Alex threatened. "Also she can dress the way she wants dickhead. Not everyone has same taste of colors."  
Kara felt overjoyed hearing Alex defend her. She didn't need to; Kara was capable enough to handle anyone on her own but it was nice to see that someone like Alex had her back in these type of situations. However, before things could escalate much Kara offered her badge to him.

"See. All prim and proper. Now would you like to let us through, or should I call your captain? What was his name again, Mr. Donell or was it Dorwell?" she said in an offhanded manner.

"You can go. Lt. Maggie Sawyers is the in charge here. She is standing over there." he pointed to a small Latina woman talking to someone.  
"Let's go Kara." Alex pushed her towards Maggie.

Seeing them both walking towards her, Maggie dismissed the guy and granted them her full attention. "And who in the world are you lot?"

"Kara do your thing." Alex said to her softly before telling Maggie. "We are from the FBI. Since this case is non-human, we are here to take over the proceedings."  
Kara nodded and started walking around but was stopped by a hand on her arm which belonged to Maggie. "I am going to stop you from doing whatever you do. No one does shit here unless we talk first."

"I am not the logistics person Lt. In the time you both can figure out your differences, I might be able to figure out a few things." Kara tried pacifying all the parties.

"Doesn't matter. We talk first."

Alex looked very irritated at this behavior. She nodded at her to stay. "What do we need to talk about here?"

"Oh, I don't know! You guys are the ones who are trying to poach my case over here. Since when does FBI has a department for alien related cases anyway? For all I know you could be impersonating anyone and are here to contaminate the scene." Maggie said looking at both rather suspiciously.  
Alex snorted. "Interesting theory, doesn't make any sense, but really interesting theory." she sobered before speaking. "But seriously, let Kara case the scene while we talk. It would save all of us a lot of time."

"Not alone she won't. Anderson, get over here." A tall guy came towards them. "These guys are from the FBI. Can you please keep an eye on Kara while she has a look around?"

"Sure Ma'am."

"This is ridiculous." Alex started arguing before Kara cut her off. "It's fine Alex. No harm done. I'll just have a quick look around."  
She quickly went away from both as she was really not in a mood of witnessing a power fight. The Anderson guy quietly followed her, always keeping an eye on her movements. She closed her eyes and took a long deep breath to empty her mind as much as possible. Opening her eyes, the first thing she noticed was that there was white outline of a body on the ground and the corpse was missing itself.

"Where's the victim's body?" she asked looking at Anderson.

"It was taken away as soon as the press got the wind. An ambulance took it to a nearby morgue."

Well, there goes her primary source of information. She looked the shape in which the body was laying and checked the blood pattern. 'Weird, not uneven.' her brain voice supplied. She took a closer look at the blood on the ground and found that there was an equal amount at different places. Filing the information for later, she backed away and inspected the junkyard as a whole. There was a world of garbage lying all over the place, but the body was out in the open. She backtracked towards where various police cars were parked. Examining the tire tracks, her brain had already hypothesized a theory. 'Even pattern, out in the open, different car. One more info and you got a pretty solid first impression.' she thought, making her way back to Alex and Maggie.

They both had given up trying to talk and were busy in barking out orders to others. Seeing Kara going to Maggie, Alex slowly approached her. "Hey Lt. Maggie, may I ask a few questions?" Kara asked.

"What in the world you guys need now?" Maggie took a deep breath after saying this. "Just ask. It's not my best day."

"Who called in the homicide?"

"A uniform in 31st precinct. He was patrolling in his car when he saw a weird looking van around. Followed it to the junkyard before he heard a gunshot, to which he called for more backup. The van left pretty fast seeing police arrive. And before you ask, it had no plate, all black windows. We have nothing on that front." Maggie explained.  
There it was. The final piece required to solidify her first theory of the case. 'Even spreading of blood, weird placement of body, not matching tyres and a weird black van'. She gave Alex her patented 'I have something look', coined by Alex herself. 

"You can tell me in front of her Kar. Apparently, we have to work together." she told her before mumbling, "At least until I get the whole case for us."

"All right L.T. The murder wasn't committed here. So, you can tell all the CSI guys to go home. They are not going to find a single thing related to the case here even after combing for literal days." she told everyone present .

"What the hell? How in the world can you even know anything about this?" Maggie asked skeptically.

"Here we go." Alex interjected. "All right Kara, take a deep breath and begin. And just so you guys know, you asked for this."  
Kara took her advice and inhaled long ahead of presenting all the gathered facts. 

"Well, it's pretty basic deduction. The outline of the body in the co-relation to the blood on the ground tells me that the victim was shot in chest at a point-blank range. Pretty basic I know. But if you consider the latter point, at point blank range, blood literally goes everywhere. Now look at the blood on the ground, first of all, the spread doesn't make sense; second, it's way too evenly distributed. That's fact one. Now for the second, I will ask you all to look around where we are standing."

"A junkyard?" Maggie answered.

"Exactly. There is garbage everywhere. If they murderers wanted to hide the body efficiently, they could have hidden this a lot better. Just put it in trunk of disabled car right there and it would take weeks to figure out what actually happened. Now you can say that they probably panicked; to which I will reply that these guys were professional enough to get away without anyone catching a single whiff of their whereabouts, despite police on their tails. Furthermore, have you checked the tyre patterns where the cars are parked. Every single one of them has same tread thickness, except four. Another interesting fact, the four of them are exactly same. Why did they need to come here twice?"

"And last but not the least, you told me that there was no one in the area who saw the murder happen. Do you think it was sheer luck that the dude who reported this just found a mysterious van in the middle of nowhere? Nope. They allowed him to trail them. I might be wrong here, but I believe at the moment this is the most plausible theory. The victim wasn't murdered here. He was most probably killed beforehand; they made the scene looked like that it happened just then and then just bolted."

There were a few moments of silence, which was broken but Anderson's vivacious laughter. "Man, I got to give it to her. That was some quick thinking, coming up with such a story on the spot. No way she did anything else. I was following her around and all she did was hobble to various spots before zoning out for minutes."  
'Here we go again. Why does no one ever listen to you?' Lena's voice was back in her mind. 'I really don't understand why anyone would go to such lengths just to tell a lie for something no one even expects an answer for?"

'I really don't know.' Kara thought back prior to looking directly at Anderson who was still struggling to control his laughter. "Listen here you dimwit, I don't really need to tell you all anything. All I am trying to do his help. Whether you want it or not is up to you. I have much better things to do in my life than looking around in a junkyard."

"Trust her on this. She has been wrong only once since we have started together. All her deductions have solid facts backing them. Sure, a lot of the times they look like a reach but whenever you go deep, you find things exactly as she predicted." Alex came to her defense.

"You really gonna believe the weirdo." Anderson asked Maggie.

Maggie thought about something for nearly a minute. "Get out of here Anderson. I need to speak to them alone."

He looked shocked at this. "You got a problem following orders?" threatened Maggie.  
"Wha-whatever." He mumbled leaving them alone.

"Do you have any proof? Something I can use to convince others." Maggie rounded on Kara.

"Not really. You can wait for the coroner's examination if you want, I am pretty sure his report will match my theory." Kara replied honestly.

"Why would anyone want to stage a murder? I mean why not just kill and move on." Maggie further questioned.  
"Fear is a very powerful tool in this world. The press here is going to make sure that everyone who looks at news would know about this incident. The truth of the world today Lt. Maggie Sawyers, is that who is feared the most is the most powerful. And what better way to make people afraid than openly killing an alien. The alien community would panic, and they would find much easier targets because a frightened person is the most desperate one."

"And you figured it all out by just roaming around?"

"Honestly, yes. It's up to you if you want to believe me but that's all I did." Kara replied before asking something which was bothering her since she found out that the body was gone. "Where is the body if you don't mind me asking?"

"Nearest morgue. Ambulance took it hours ago."  
"Did any policemen go with it?"

"I don't know. It was long gone when I arrived. It's pretty weird I know but we couldn't afford to let the press take any pictures." Maggie said.  
"Rao." Kara whispered. "Alex call Winn and Vas. We need to get the body back if we want to solve the case quickly." Seeing Alex nod, she turned towards Maggie. "I am so sorry, but can you check if it arrived properly please?"

"Sure. Give me a minute." Maggie went to call someone.  
Kara's mind was racing. All she had done was give them a head start. She knew that even without her help, the police would have reached the same conclusion albeit a few days later. They had a long way to go to unravel this mystery. A large portion of her mind was screaming that this was Agents of Liberty again, but she didn't want to panic anybody. To pass the time, she ran various hypothesis in her mind, reaching nowhere.  
'You are thinking too hard darling. Just take a deep breath. Calm yourself and begin anew.' Lena's voice spoke again. Considering that it was her most collected voice of her mind, she followed her instructions.

"Agent Kara. You there?" Maggie's voice interrupted her momentary Zen.

"Yea-Yeah. Did you find something?"

Even before Maggie spoke, Kara knew the answer by just looking at her face. "The body's missing. The ambulance never reached the destination." She looked crestfallen saying this. 

"Well, I am not going to say I didn't think of this. Don't worry, Winn is almost godly with computers. He will find it, or whatever remains of it."  
Maggie looked strangely at her after the reply. It was akin to staring and Kara unconsciously shifted on her feet to distract herself. "Wh-What happened? I am sorry if I came as rude or something. I am working on it I promise." she asked nervously.

"Wha-No. No you weren't rude even if you have every right to be. I am the lead here and my simple mistake could cost us the case. I thought you would be angry. I was just shocked by your calm and collected response that's all."

There was a comfortable silence after this. Kara looked at her phone while Maggie observed her closely, as if looking at someone alien. 'Well you are one.' A different voice piped up. 'Shut up.' she thought back. 

"Okay." Alex spoke up as soon as she came into her peripheral. "I have informed everything back to the HQ. It should be a while before we get anything else." she looked at Kara softly. "I am sorry for disturbing you today Kara. I know you didn't want to come to work. You can head back if you want. I'll take it from here today." 

"No worries Al. I just hope Lena isn't mad." The nickname rolled out of her tongue before she could stop it. However, before either of them could comment on this, Maggie spoke up.  
"Hey. Hold on. We are not done here. I need to talk to both of you."

"Okay." Kara spoke softly.

"I know you are thinking about taking away the case from my hands and frankly, I get that. I have made some severe mistakes today. But I have a preposition. We could work together on thi-"

"Absolutely not." Alex interjected.

"Alex. Let her say her mind. It's rude to interrupt." Kara told her softly.

"Fine. But answer will always be no. Just so you know."

Maggie gave Kara a thankful look before resuming. "Us working together would be beneficial for all the involved parties. I know that you guys have way more resources than us, but I have the connections." She came close prior to whispering. "People are not going to talk if you keep show off that fake FBI badge everywhere."  
Alex looked extremely cool hearing this but knowing the woman, Kara knew that it was the calm before the storm. "I don't know what you are implicating Lt. Maggie Sawyers. I can assure you that we work for the FBI. You can ask your captain if you have any doubt in our credibility."

"Hey, no need to be mad. I know of the DEO's existence. You guys are creating a lot of buzz in the alien community and some of my friends are honestly impressed by your departments’ work. That's the biggest reason I allowed Kara to snoop around the scene."

Kara had a genuine smile on her face. The person in front of her was not someone who rolled over when things got hard. Also, it looked her deductive skills were not to be taken slightly because since they had started she was the first to figure out that they weren't FBI. Alex, however, didn't find it amusing at all. "What's this, a blackmail?"

"No not at all. I just want a chance to catch the culprit. I know that I have made mistakes today and I need a chance to redeem myself. I have a lot of alien friends and if this is part of something big, it is my duty to keep them safe before this reaches them. You guys have just set up the shop so you may have a great head-start on resources, but you won't be much efficient on getting information out of people."

"This is just a temporary partnership. You can go to your shadowy ways after solving this. This would be mutually beneficial for all of us. And if you are worried about your secrets getting out, you really don't need to worry. No one here except me knows about it and I intend to keep it that way."

Maggie looked in their direction hopefully after speaking her mind. 'Well she does make a good case for her', Kara thought in her head, but knew that the final decision lay in the hands of Alex, who by the way, looked so deep in thought that even Kara was envy of. After an uncomfortable silence which lasted a few minutes, Alex finally spoke up. 

"You get two days with us. If you can help us in a meaningful way you can hop on board. Otherwise, you forget about this and move on." 

"Absolutely. You are not going to regret this, I promise."

"We'll see." Alex spoke and walked away.

"See you around Danvers." Maggie replied cheekily. Kara was left standing with Maggie. She smiled at her. 'Ask her', her brain supplied, so she did.

"How did you know we weren't real FBI? You are the first one to figure it out."

"You guys don't act like one. I have dealt with a lot of feds and let me tell you, if you were the real deal, I would not have been standing here at all. Also, it helps that I already knew that there is a thing called DEO who helps in alien related cases. I just majorly guessed and hoped that I wasn't wrong." Kara nodded hearing the explanation. "Can you tell me what's the deal with Danvers? Is she like this with everyone or was it me specifically she hates?"

"Oh she is like that with everyone new. No need to take it personally. She doesn't trust easy. I am pretty sure half of the staff is afraid of her. She might seem uptight at the surface level, but she is an extremely good person and a friend if you get to know her."

"Well it's been a pleasure taking to you Kara. I hope we can work together to solve this. I am going to take a leave now, need to do something about the shitshow." Maggie told her.

"Yeah sure. See you later." Kara took off towards her car. Before she could reach it though, she was stopped due to pain flaring in her legs. 'Not again. I thought it was getting better.' she thought. Despite putting in a great effort to stay upright, she found herself falling. However, someone helped her prior to her face hitting the road. 

"Woah there! Are you all right?" Kara looked up at the helper's face to see Nia looking at her with concern etched all over her face. If she was surprised to see that it was Kara, she didn't let her features show it at all. "Hello again."

"Hey." Kara leaned on her for support to stand again. "Yeah I am fine. Just my injury decided that it was funny to annoy me again. Thank you for the assist though."

"Are you going somewhere near? I can call a cab for you if you want."

"Nah. My car's around the corner. It's fine if you want to leave. The pain would go away after a while." Kara said.

"Nope. I am dropping you to your car. I would feel awful if I just left because I'll never know if you reached the car or not." She told her fully determined.  
It was a slow process. She was pretty heavy when she couldn't regulate her powers properly, and right now she was in no control of them. Nia didn't complain though and Kara appreciated it very much. She was very grateful to meet such a kind soul. They finally reached the car after struggling together for what felt like hours.

"There we go." Nia panted. "Just a few more steps."

Kara reached the driver's side and opened the door. She looked at Nia who was unlocking her phone, most likely to arrange her travel. Her mind made the decision to offer her a ride, if she lacked one, in a split second.

"Hey. I can drop you anywhere if you want to." she offered.

"Oh don't worry about it. I can call a cab. I wouldn't want to be a bother."  
These offhanded comments about herself reminded Kara so much of her younger self, before she met Lena. "You are not a bother. You helped me when no one else did. I am just repaying your gen-gene-, your kindness. Besides it is pretty boring driving alone." she pouted.

"All right." Nia replied getting in the car. "It's generosity by the way. The word you were trying to say."

"English is hard. I still don't understand half the idioms and phrases and whatever."

"I get that." Nia chuckled. "Do you know the L-corp building? I live like 5 minutes from there."

"Damn. Isn't that area expensive?"

"Not if you live with two other people. Seriously though, a few buildings near it give a lot of discount. I guess no one wants to live under the shadow of the Luthor's legacy."  
Kara didn't comment on that. She knew Lena was absolutely fine leaving everything related to the Luthors behind and hearing people talk about them in such a way, she didn't blame her. She had different ideology than others as she didn't judge others on the basis of their family, but she understood that some people were not forgiving at all. Still she hated that people would judge Lena if they knew she was a Luthor, without even trying to know her first. 'Not everyone is you darling. You can't change people's perspective.' Lena's voice rattled in her mind.  
Silence dawned in the car. Kara focused on her driving and Nia was overlooking her notes. Nearing the destination, Nia finally finished reviewing and started looking around the car.

"Who is this, if you don't mind me asking?" she asked pointing at a small picture of Lena sitting on her dashboard.

"She's Lena, my wife. Probably the best person I have ever known."

"Oh you're married. That's cool. I am pretty bad when it comes to dating and relationships."

"Neither was I. All I can say is never lose hope and keep trying, someone always comes along. I never knew I would find someone who would like to spend their life with me."  
Nia nodded. "Can I ask you something else?"

"As long as it's not related to the murder, sure."

"Did you always have trouble with your legs or is it something new? I am sorry if I am being inconsiderate."

"Stop apologizing Nia. You are not being anywhere close to inconsiderate." she lightly scolded her. "And to answer your question, it happened last year. I was in the army. It was a rescue mission gone pretty bad."   
'Fuck kryptonite' A voice spoke up. As much as she didn't like swearing, Kara totally agreed with the sentiment. She would not need anyone's help if it wasn't for that stupid green rock.

"Damn. Well at least you didn't have to lose your leg or something like that. That would have been bad."

"Yeah. That was all luck."

Nia told her directions from the L-corp building towards her apartment. Kara parked the car outside her apartment. "This is me. Thank you so much for dropping me off."

"No problems."

"Can I have your number? I don't get out much and I could use a friend or two. Honestly, you seem like a good person and I wouldn't mind hanging out with you if you want it too. Also, I could help you in your investigation in some way." Nia asked nervously. 

"Sure. Though I should warn you, I don't get time to hang out with even Lena so don't get your hopes much high on that front."

They exchanged their contacts before Nia bid her farewell. Kara stopped on Noonan on her way back as she was feeling rather famished. The food there was rather delightful and they didn't comment on the amount of food Kara ate. She bought ice cream before heading back towards home.  
Parking her car in the garage, she hobbled into her living room. The pain had subsided but the aftereffects were still lingering. She saw Lena curled up on the couch watching some food related show. Her face automatically broke into a smile.

"Hey Lee. I come bearing ice cream."

"Ohh yess! Keep it in the refrigerator before it melts. Quick!" she told her. Kara did as she was told before joining her. As soon as she sat, she was greeted by Lena's lips on her own. And just like that all the tension had seeped away from her shoulders. 

"You're home early. I thought I would have to wait till evening."

"I did what I could. Up to Winn now to do his magic. Alex is dealing with rest of the work today." she told her as she adjusted herself such that her head was in Lena's lap. Lena started threading her fingers through her hair softly.

"Well how was work today?"

"Ahh. The same. Will tell you in more detail once it is solved. It's weird that we are working with local police on this one."

"I saw the news. Seems pretty horrible to be honest. I hope you are able to solve this."  
"Yeah. This one might take some long nights. They were professionals most likely." Kara spoke looking up at Lena. "Also I think I made a new friend."

"Really? That's so good. Tell me about her."

"Well friend is relative term here. She was nice to me and I drove her home. Her name's Nia. She works at CatCo. She reminds me a lot of myself when I was young. Don't think anyone has ever sat down and told her that she doesn't need to impress everyone. Poor girl."

"But now she has the best hype woman a person can get as a friend. I am sure she'll be fine."   
Kara nodded into Lena's stomach. After a few moments of silence, Kara spoke something which was on her mind since a few weeks now.

"I am thinking of telling Alex the truth about me."

Lena was quiet for a few seconds, most probably thinking. She broke her silence with the words, "All right. She seems like a good person. I'll tell about Luthors too if you are going to tell about being Kryptonian. I don't think that she has figured out that I am Lena Luthor yet."

"She is kinda slow in picking up these things isn't she?" Lena asked as a afterthought.

"Yeah she is. Really really bad. I think Winn's worse though. He thought that we weren't married even after we kissed right in front of him." 

They both laughed at this. Kara was getting rather sleepy due to Lena's ministrations. As her eyes were becoming more and more droopy, she thanked Rao for Lena in her life. 

The last thought that came in her mind before sleep overtook her was that Lena was her home and she didn't need anything else. She had her and that's all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify a few things:  
> 1\. Kara has the voices in her head due to her spending decades in isolation in phantom zone.  
> 2\. Her powers work differently in this story. I will explain this in the next few chapters.
> 
> Hope you liked the chapter. I had a fun time writing Kara's POV.  
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.


	4. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara has a horrible day. Alex learns a truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there. I hope I was able to answer some of your questions with this one. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 4: Revelations

Time is such a weird concept. Two people living in two different corners of the world can have very different time on their watches, and you cannot say that one is wrong and the other is right. This is just on Earth. When we add different gravity and attractive forces being applied on unalike planets by stars in non-identical solar systems, the abstraction that is time can overwhelm you completely. It's relativity across the universe is something which made it one of the most intriguing things for Kara when she was young. 

  
Despite such curiosity about the subject, she couldn't for her life figure out how in Rao's name was time going so slow? Isn't it supposed to pass in a uniform interval for a person who is just standing on the surface of Earth? Well, all she knew at the moment was that time was crawling while she was stuck outside an interrogation room and she was getting frustrated. Not at the slow passage of time, but at Alex. There was no reason for her to leave Kara in a precinct to oversee interrogation of suspects, in which she couldn't even participate, while she herself was working with Maggie on finding information about the victim. It was a such a beautiful day to be out, but nope, she was dwelling outside a small box hoping that time would just get a move on. 

"What won't I give to let time pass this slowly when I am with Lee." she thought out loud.

'Just take one for the team darling. Aren't you supposed to be the ideal soldier?' Lena's voice spoke in her mind. Kara decided to ignore the voice of reason and went back to lamenting about her uselessness in the current situation. After another monotonous half an hour, she was almost up to her breaking point. 

"Hey Kara. Get over here." Maggie's voice broke her dull mindset.  
She quickly scampered over to where Maggie was standing. "I am here. Where we going? Please tell me that we are going somewhere. I can't spend another minute here. My brain will fall out of my head if I spend one more moment in this place."

"Hold up. Yes we are getting out of here but we need to wait out for Alex first. She should be joining us soon."

"Did you guys find something useful? It has been a constant stream of nothing over here. Half the hobos living near the junkyard are either high or drunk. No one knows jack over here."

"Yeah. Your Winn guy came through. We got the name and address just by a photo off the body. Once Alex joins us, we are going to head over there."

Kara's phone pinged at that exact moment. She unlocked it to discover a message from Alex.

Alex: My informant just called me to tell me that he has something. You guys head to the apartment. I'll see you there.

"Huh. Looks like Alex ain't joining us Maggie. Let's go to the apartment."

"Why? What happened?" Maggie asked.

"Apparently, she has an informant with some... information, I guess? I don't know. She will meet us at the address." 

"Okay meet me at the parking. I am going to grab some stuff." Maggie told her and they parted ways.

The car ride was relatively silent. 'Relatively' because Kara was constantly humming and singing a few songs throughout the ride. There were a few times when Maggie wanted to ask Kara a few things but seeing her so carefree and happy stopped her from doing so. However, near the end of their ride, she decided to just go through with her queries.

"How did you guys join DEO? Danvers just seems like a normal doctor with combat training and no offense... but you can't really run. So how come you guys are part of an elite department?" Maggie quickly added to this question. "Before you get offended, I am going to say that I could have phrased it better. I am just curious about it that's all."

"None taken. I know that I may never heal completely and honestly, I am still coming to grips with it. But things have been getting easier, so I am really not going to complain." she replied honestly. "I don't know much about Alex, but I was in the army before DEO started. They picked me right after I got out of hospital. Alex did her PhD a year ago from Stanford. I guess they figured out that she was a genius at her work. She never really told me much." 

"Cool. Where were you posted?"

"Classified." Kara replied in a no-nonsense voice. "I can't tell a single thing about my time in the army. I am sorry about that, but it is what it is."

"No problem at all." she added after a momentary pause. "On a different topic, what’s Alex's deal?"

"Hmm? I think she can be uptight at times, but I would still pick her up over anyone in the DEO to watch my back." she replied after thinking for a few moments.

Maggie laughed at her answer. "Not like that. I was more asking about if she was hitched like you or not?"

"Hitched?"

"Married; or in a relationship could also work here. Seriously, sometimes you act more like an alien kiddo."  
Kara laughed awkwardly at the joke. She quickly changed focus back on Alex's life. "Not married. I don't know about being in a relationship though. As I told you, she really doesn't talk about her personal life." Her brain processed the 'kiddo' word after a few moments. "Hey! I am not a kid. I am a 25-year-old adult."

"And I am 5 years older than you, ergo you are a kiddo to me. Get used to it." she replied with a straight face. "Anyway, we are here."

She stopped the car in front of a tall building. Kara wanted to protest about the previous comment but decided to shelf it for later. Getting out of the car, her first impression was that the place screamed rich and posh. Oh well, it wasn't like she hadn't dealt with rich snobs in her past. She followed behind Maggie towards the elevator in the main hall.

"Which floor?" she enquired.

"Penthouse. It seems that our guy was stacked." Maggie replied.

No. Not at all. Nope. No way she was getting in the elevator for that long. "Umm. You go ahead, I'll take the stairs."

"What? It's 26 floors Kara. How are you going to climb that many steps in your condition?" she asked with a tinge of worry in her voice.

"Please!! I'll get there in some time." she pleaded. "Besides, climbing steps is good for me. Just ask my physio." she flat out lied.  
Maggie studied her for a few moments. Kara, being nervous, started playing with the hem of her shirt. Once her inspection was done, Maggie's features became soft before speaking, "You are claustrophobic, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Kara replied in a small voice.

"Can you just come up a few floors and walk after that? I would hate for you to climb up so many stairs."

"I can stay in it for a little while. Usually when I enter elevators, I am with Lena and she is able to do something, but I don't know about being alone."

"I can try to help. Just tell me if you are getting too overwhelmed, okay?"

Kara was really anxious about this situation. The worst thing about this was that she could not get out of it without revealing to Maggie that she wasn't really a human. 'Well, you could just not go at all.' the voices supplied. 'Nah. What good would that do?' Considering the idiots which are currently combing the apartment, she was absolutely sure that they were going to miss a lot of obvious things crucial to the case.

"I-I will try." she said tentatively taking slow steps towards the elevator. As soon as she stepped inside, Maggie told her to listen to her voice.  
"Just stay with me, all right?" Seeing Kara nod, she sneakily pressed the button to the penthouse floor. The sight of closing door made Kara extremely terrified. Maggie quickly took one of her hand to re-target her focus on her voice. "So, care to tell me about this Lena person? She is your wife, isn't she? Alex mentioned her yesterday."

Kara wasn't listening at all. She was busy regulating her breath and focusing her brain. Despite every cell in her body screaming at her to break out of this metal cage, she stayed in. She thought of the many happy memories she had made with various people throughout the years. First visit to Smallville with Clark and Lois, her wedding day, spending time in Themyscira with Diana. Yet, regardless of her efforts, the memory which kept surfacing up was that of the Phantom Zone. It was as if she was reliving her experience in the vast nothingness of space. She could sense a panic attack coming up but could not do a single thing to stop it. 

'Get out now Kar!' Lena's voice screamed in her head. She completely agreed to it. Mustering all her strength, she spoke in a wobbly voice. "Out. Ne-Need out now."

The elevator came to a stop a moment later and she quickly stumbled out of it. 'Deep breaths. One... Two... Just inhale and exhale. You'll be fine.' her subconsciousness supplied. A hand touched her on the shoulder and she immediately flinched away from it. 

"Hey, hey. You are safe now. It's over. We are right outside the penthouse." Someone was speaking to her. She ignored it and just kept trying to breath. No one touched her again and she was grateful to the person for that. The last thing she wanted at this time was to unwillingly hurt someone because she wasn't able to reel her powers in.

She didn't know for how long she was just sitting there, frozen in fear. Any attempt to cleanse her mind of Phantom Zone's memories were met with severe resistance. It was as if someone was controlling her mind to only think of the forsaken space pod. She was stuck in her worst nightmare and all she could do was keep living it. It took her a long long time to get control of her body back.  
When she was cognizant enough to look at her surroundings, she found herself curled around a sofa. The place looked pretty familiar, but she was so tired that she did not even bother finding out where she was. Completely drained mentally, she was closing her eyes when she saw Lena talking to someone on her phone in her peripheral. She was curious as to what her wife was suddenly doing in a crime scene. She decided to call her out to check if she was just a hallucination. It wasn't like that it hadn't happened to her before.

"Le-Lee?" she called out weakly. Lena's figure turned around to look at her. Seeing her awake, Lena quickly covered the distance between them and sat on her knees near her head.

"Hey sleepyhead. How you doing?" Lena asked her, stroking her hair gently.

"I-I am ge-getting b-b... better. Wha-Where are we?"

"Home. You gave me a quite a scare this time. What happened?"

"Ele-Elevator. Needed to g-get to p-penthouse. H-How home?"

"Alex dropped you off seeing the condition you were in. She is pissed off-" she quickly broke off whatever she was saying. "Just rest right now, okay? We can deal with everything later."  
"What happened?" she asked trying to get up but was stopped by Lena.

"Nope. If we are doing this, you need to stay on the couch." she took a deep breath before continuing, "Alex knows."  
"Hmm?" Kara asked confused.  
"She knows you are an alien." she rushed through the statement. Seeing Kara's horror-stricken face she tried reassuring her. "It was not your fault at all Kar. It's just; you were floating a bit while you were unconscious."

"What? No... no,no. She is going to hate me Lee. I wanted to tell her ta-tomorrow but she won't believe me at all." she said holding her head in her hands.

Lena knew that giving her opinion at the moment will only increase her panic. So, she just held Kara tightly in her arms and let her brain run all the worst case scenarios. After a lot of mumbling incoherent thoughts and tears, Kara fell asleep again. She hated seeing her like this. Why the universe had to put the most wonderful, cheery and sunny person through such hardships and trials, while monsters like her family spent their lives in ease? Well, she couldn't do much earlier, but she would be damned if she let Kara go through another hardship alone. Alex was going to come over later and she would stand by Kara through that conversation, no matter the outcome.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alex's day was going weirdly interesting to say the least. It's not like you find everyday that your co-worker was a otherworldly being. She was not really sure what she was feeling about this reveal. Betrayal, confusion with underlying anger was probably the best way to describe her mindset at the moment. 

She was standing at the door of the penthouse when suddenly the elevator opened up and Kara stumbled out of it. She looked like she was having a panic attack and Maggie was trying to calm her down, although to no success at all.  
"What's happening?" she ran over to where they were standing.

"Panic attack. She said she was claustrophobic, but I didn't knew it was that bad. She was fine halfway but it went pretty bad very soon." Maggie replied sounding very nervous.

"Why did you even let her in the first place, if she already told you that she doesn't like enclosed spaces?" she asked a bit harshly.  
"She was going to climb 26 floors. You and I both know she is in no condition to do so. So, I took a gamble and it didn't pay off. Are you honestly telling me that if you were in my place you would let her climb all these stairs?" she shot back.

Alex wanted to argue back but decided to shelf her arguments after seeing the condition Kara was in. She was sitting on the ground, knees tucked to her chest with her arms around them and her head on the knees. She was shaking continuously and mumbling something. Alex sat beside her to offer her some kind of comfort, even though it was almost miniscule right now.

"You are a doctor, right? Can't you do something?" Maggie asked quietly.

"Not that kind of doctor. I know a few things but nowhere near what is required here. I can help her regulate her breathing and stuff, but not much more than that." she decided to play it safe and call professional help. "You know what, call an ambulance. I'll call Lena and tell her to get there."

"I already called it. You go tell her wife; I'll stay with her."

Alex nodded and walked a few steps away. She wouldn't have Lena's number if Kara didn't insist on it. "We have a difficult job Alex. Is difficult right word here? Anyway, anything could happen to us at any time. We should have at least a way to contact the other's family." she kept telling her for days before Alex decided to give in.  
Lena picked her phone basically on the first ring. "Is she all right?" a harried voice came through.

"How the fuck? And no, she isn't fine. Before you get all worried, it's nothing life threatening. She is having a panic attack, most probably caused by being in the elevator. We have already called an ambulance."

"No hospitals. I'll be there in like 10 minutes. Just keep her company till then. DO NOT try to touch or hold her if you value your hands." Lena told her and cut off the call.  
Alex was bemused after the conversation. The call did not go at all as she was expecting. Well, she would hold her questions till Lena arrives. She sat down beside Kara and observed her for any deterioration in her condition. There was something weird about her mumblings though. It didn't seem incoherent at all. She was repeating the same thing over and over again, but Alex couldn't for her life figure out the words she was speaking. 

It wasn't even ten minutes later when Lena was rushing out the elevator. She didn't even notice Alex sitting right beside Kara. She quickly sat on Kara's other side and spoke something to her. After getting no response from her, she took something out of her purse. On a closer inspection, it was a syringe. 

"Woah woah woah! What are you doing?" she stopped Lena's hand.

"It's just to make her unconscious. How else are you getting her to the ground floor, putting her back into the elevator in this state?" Lena snapped back.

Alex didn't like it but also did not want to get in Lena's way. She was obviously reeling her anger back and the last thing they needed was a shouting contest right there. 

"All right. But you are going to answer a lot of questions after this, all right?"  
"Sure." she replied and went back to attending to Kara. She carefully injected the syringe into her neck. After a few moments, Kara slowly stopped shaking and fell unconsciousness.   
"Help me get her to the car." she told Alex and started getting Kara up.

Maggie, who was lurking just out of sight came towards both of them. "Will she be all right?" she asked hanging her head in shame.

"In long term yeah. She is not going to able to sleep for weeks now so there is that to content with. Other than that, she should be fine in the next few days. A piece of advice for future endeavors, never mix her and small spaces. It's a sure fire recipe for disaster." Lena said looking up to Maggie. "Who are you, exactly?"

"Lt Maggie Sawyer of the NCPD. I am working with Alex and Kara on this case. I think I should tell you that I was the one with whom she was in that elevator. I am sorry for everything happening here."

"You couldn't have done much anyway. If she makes up her mind about something, then it is nearly impossible to talk her out of it." Seeing that Maggie did not look convinced at all, Lena spoke further. "You made a mistake today. Instead of feeling guilty, don't let it happen again in the future. I am sorry for not introducing myself. Lena Zorel, professor at NCU."

She nodded at Maggie before carrying Kara back to the elevator. Alex didn't want to be rude, but Kara was so heavy. Like god! Either Lena was not pulling her weight or Kara was made of iron. "Why is she so heavy?"

"What do you think is inside her clothes? It's all muscle. Like damn!" she replied dreamily.

Alex coughed awkwardly. "Didn't need to know that, but okay. Get the button please."

The ride down was smoother than expected. She was getting used to Kara's weight and it was significantly less bothersome than when she picked her up. Stepping out the elevator, they made a beeline towards Lena's car. "Why no hospital? I thought you of all person would advocate getting professional help for her."

"She doesn't like hospitals. If she woke up in one, she would most likely get another panic attack." she took a deep breath before continuing. "That's not the complete reason, but I cannot tell you everything right now. Please bear with us for a few more days. Kara should tell you everything soon."  
They settled Kara on the backside of the Kara. Lena took the driver's seat and Alex followed into the passenger side. "Thanks for the help." Lena said trying to start the car.  
Alex noticed the woman sitting beside her more minutely. One thing she would definitely give to Lena was that the woman knew how to hide her emotions in front of others. Her hands were trembling, and she was continuously tapping her feet, but you could not tell that there was anything wrong just by looking at her face. She felt bad for Lena. Her wife was sleeping in the back of the car, going through god knows what nightmare, and she had to act normal in front of everyone.

She didn't really speak anything at all throughout the car ride, mainly because she didn't want to hassle Lena, who looked more and more nervous by each passing minute. Knowing that they were nearing the couple's residence, Alex looked at Kara's sleeping figure. At first, she thought that she had fell asleep and was dreaming. No way that Kara's body was just floating above the seat. Now she was no physics major, but even she knew that gravity is not supposed to work that way. She pieced the pieces to arrive at the conclusion that the person in front of her was in-fact an alien.  
"What the fuck?" she shouted at the sleeping form.

Lena looked behind and seeing Kara, her calm facade broke away faster than her eyes could blink. She slammed the brakes and stopped the car. 

"Damnit. Damn. Fuck." Lena swore. "You weren't supposed to know it like this."

"What? Why won't I want to know the person I spend most of my office hours is an alien?" she shouted at Lena.

Lena took a deep breath and just like that she looked absolutely calm again. "I can explain. Just let me drive home and settle her first."

A few minutes later, they were outside the Zorel home. After depositing Kara on the couch, Alex rounded on Lena. "How is she an alien? You better explain me everything Lena or I swear-"

"Or what, you going to shout and cry?" Lena cut her off. "You can't do a single thing to me or her. And she is an alien because she was not born on Earth. I thought you would know at least this much." she snarked.

"I am not in mood for sassiness right now. I want answers."

"And you will get them once she wakes up. I am not telling you shit because it's her story to tell. And considering how you are acting right now; I won't let her say anything at all. So, I would advise you to go home, cool off and come back in the evening. We can have a civil conversation then."

"I am not going anywhere."

"Oh, you are. Either to home or to a police precinct. In case you don't know, you are trespassing on a private property. Your choice on where you would like to go. Just get out of my home. You don't want to make me angry Alex."

This is how Alex found herself standing outside Kara's house at 7pm in the evening. Not that she would admit it to anyone, but Lena's advice to cool off was really useful for her. Her anger was still there, but there was a small feeling that she should give Kara a chance to come clean. Knowing Kara, she might have some genuine reason to not tell her anything.  
She could hear a soft tune being played in the living room. She never told either of them, but she really liked their place. It provided a serenity and calmness which was absent in the rush living lifestyle of the city. Composing herself once more, she knocked on the door. 

A few moments later, the front door opened and Lena poked her head out. 

"Oh! It's you." she didn't look or sound happy seeing her. If she was being honest to herself, no one except Kara took time to check if she was doing all right or not.

"Yeah. It's me. I promise I am calm and collected. No more screaming. I just wanted to talk." she told honestly. "Can I come in?"

Lena looked back in the house and inhaled sharply before opening the door completely. She ushered her into the living room which was attached to the kitchen. Various food items were cluttered all over the place which made it look like she was working out a new recipe.  
"Don't mind the mess. Kara has to eat a lot after any incidents like today." Lena looked directly into her eyes before continuing. "I'll be honest with you; she is not doing well. I don't really want you here to cause her any more problems, but she wanted to talk to you about everything as soon as possible. So, I am going to request you to keep an open mind and listen to her before passing any judgements."

Alex felt bad for her behavior earlier in the day. "I will try my best. As I told you earlier, I just wanted to talk."

Lena nodded at her words. "I know you are smart enough but never, ever tell anyone about a single thing that is going to be spoken in this room today if you value your life. Be mad at us if you want to, but if she gets hurts even one bit because you babbled her secret to someone else, I swear on Kara that you are going to beg for death."

The tone in which she delivered it was so different from the talks she had with Lena that she was stuck speechless for few seconds. Lena looked absolutely serious saying this. Call it stubbornness or call it her idiocy but she never really did well with threat or blackmail. Refusing to be intimidated by her, she shot back, "And what's a physics professor going to do a federal agent if I may ask? Do you even know how to throw a punch?"

"I do. I know way more than just throwing punches. In fact, I know a lot of information about you Alex Danvers. Born in Midvale, child prodigy, first for five years straight in science fair. Do you want me to narrate your whole life?" Lena paused for a moment to let her words sink in before continuing. "You think that I am nobody who is just throwing around threats like everyone else. You should know this though, not everyone else is a Luthor." 

The whole thing was said in such an offhanded manner, that Alex almost did not get the last part. Once she did though, the word shock isn't sufficient to explain her feelings.   
"You... You are Lena Luthor?"

Lena turned away from her and stared right through the window. "I am. The one and only."  
Maybe it was shock, maybe it was the weirdness of the situation, but Alex started to laugh. Lena looked at her once and resumed her cooking. Once her laughter died down, she asked her. "You don't believe me, do you?"

"You tell me? Are you saying that a Luthor, the most notorious alien haters in probably the whole world, is married to an alien? What kind of joke is this?"

"It isn't a joke Alex." A different voice spoke up. Turning around, she saw Kara slowly climbing down the stairs. She looked awful to say the least. Her hair was all frazzled, eyes were red, and she was using a crutch to walk around. Once she reached the last stair, Lena came and guided her to sit on the couch. Once settled, Kara resumed speaking.  
"Just sit down. I know you have a lot of questions and I will try my best to answer all of them. And yes, she is a Luthor. One should not judge others on the basis of their family alone. You don't know the struggles she had to go through to reach here."

Alex sat down in a vacant chair opposite of Kara before asking. "What struggles? Growing up with most amenities money could by doesn't sound struggle to me?"

"What about the fact that my father was a manipulative asshole who wanted nothing but more money and power? Or my brother, who I had to watch turn into a maniac in front of my eyes knowing that I couldn't do anything? And do not even get me started on Lillian. I still have problems accepting who I am because my 'mom' wanted a perfect little girl. Try growing up somewhere where one mistake meant days of mental abuse, where gaining one pound resulted in me starving for a week." Lena replied angrily. 

Silence followed her outburst. No one dared to say a thing. This was the first time when Alex had seen Lena show any emotion on her face and frankly, she was a little terrified. Kara on the other hand just looked sadly at her wife and just held her hand towards Lena. She reluctantly took it after some time and Kara made her sit beside her. 

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been insensitive." Alex spoke softly.

"No worries Alex. You could not have known. Before I tell you anything, I need you to just keep an open mind, okay? I know it seems very bad that the person who you work with every day is an unregistered alien but just hear me out first." Kara replied.

"Sure, go ahead."

Kara nodded and inhaled sharply. "Where do I start?"

"Beginning." Alex offered.

"All right. Hello. I am Kara Zor-El. I was born in the birthing matrix around 40 years ago, according to Earth, to my parents Alura El and Zor El. I am a member of House of El of Krypton. Have you ever heard of Krypton?"

Alex nodded at this. "Superman. You are a kryptonian then?"

"Yeah. And before you get all excited about my powers and everything, I would like to tell you that I don't really use them. Do you know why we have powers on Earth?"

"Not exactly. All I know is that you guys can manipulate solar energy some way."

"That is true and false. On Krypton, we had a red sun, and we were just like humans there. I mean cybernetics was a thing if you wanted but speaking biologically, we were not much different from you all. Yes, we get our powers from the Sun, but not any Sun. We need to be under either yellow or blue ones to use them. Umm, Lee, do you want to explain? I don't think I can do it properly."

"Sure darling." Lena said before directing her attention towards Alex. "Kryptonians body, for some reason, works as an absorber of solar energy. Just like sponge does for water. They can harness the sunlight to do all the crazy things like flying, superstrength, laser vision bla bla. But it isn't without its disadvantage. If used excessively, it can cause their bodies to decay on a cellular level. On a smaller scale, this leaves them powerless for a few days. But if they cross a certain limit, this can result in permanent loss of power and in certain conditions even death."

"The thing that works in favor of Superman is that he is here since he was a child. He was able to grow under a yellow sun while his powers came gradually. His body suffers from the same but it's on such a small level that it doesn't matter at all. Kara here, on the other hand suffers from some disease which causes her cells to decay at a much faster rate than normal."

This was getting a bit confusing for Alex. The only thing she understood properly was that Kara was from the same planet as Krypton and due to some complications, she was not able to use her powers.

"If you can't use them, what was up with floating today?" she asked.

"I never said I can't. I just don't. I will sum it for you. If I use my powers for a long time without break, I'll die. I must rest for days if I just get in my first usage form. I can control how much powers I am using and to simplify it, I have categorized in three levels. Using a bit, I can make myself bulletproof, heal any wound, have superstrength, fly and ice breath. This is usually non-lethal. Second level involves heat vision and increase the strength of everything I told in first one. Lethal on high use. Third is my full powers and I would die if I use it."

"If you can heal, how do you still limp? Shouldn't a sun bath fix all your problems."

Neither Kara nor Lena answered this question. After a few minutes of complete silence, Lena spoke up. "You don't have to tell that Kar. I can do it."  
"No no. It's fine. I can do it. It was a hostage rescue mission. Uhh... It was in a classified location. My team was specialized for these types of scenarios. There were 5 members in this team. Me, Jack, Allison, Ken, and Ray. They all knew about my powers."

"I was ordered to report to General Sam Lane for this mission, which was the biggest red flag because he just told me which house we were supposed to carry out the mission and what we had to do. No backup plan, no information about the nearby areas, no support, not even any information about who was the hostage, nothing. I voiced my concern, but no one really listened at that time. We were all sent in blind. And... and it was a trap." Her voice broke at this.

"They had kryptonite bullets. We entered the front of the house, searched everything except the basement and it was empty. Before we could understand what was going on, they released some sort of gas. It didn't affect me, so I made sure that they were safe and went to investigate the basement."  
Alex did not like where the story was going. But she didn't disturb Kara.

"As soon as I entered, they started shooting. The bullets being kryptonite, I couldn't do much. One bullet hit my lower spine and shattered three vertebrates. I- I don't know how long I was unconscious for, but when I opened my eyes, my teammates were bound right in front of me. And you know what they did. They murdered each of them in cold blood right in front of my eyes." There were tears falling from Kara's eyes now.

"The sole reason I lived, and they died was because I had powers and they didn't. The-there was a voice on a intercom which said that they were expendable. My teammates were expendable.... Jack, who had a baby just months ago. Ray, whose mum has dementia and is still waiting for her son to return, they were expendable because someone wanted to get to me because I was Kryptonian."

"How-how did you get out?"

"They were careless. After experimenting on me, they only left one guard near me. Unlucky for them, I don't need to walk to fight. I bided my time for the perfect moment and the whole base was gone before they could even think what happened. You know, that was the first time I killed someone in cold blood. I have killed before, but they all were in self-defense or during a gunfight and I always mourned for everyone who died. Here, I didn't even give them time to get armed."

As Kara's anger was growing, her eyes were becoming more and more red. She was emanating a deadly aura and Alex decided then and there to never ever get on her angry side. Before she could run away from the room, Lena forced Kara to look in her eyes. 

"Calm down Kar. Just take a deep breath." she said in a soothing voice. Kara took a moment to compose herself.

"Anyway, the reason I can't walk is because the doctors couldn't completely remove the kryptonite. My bones had healed somewhat before they could operate due to which there is still tiny traces of kryptonite stuck in my spine. It prevents me from healing it completely. So, I am now stuck with a limp for life." she finished.

"I'm so sorry. Umm... one last question if you don't mind?"

"Shoot."

"Why did you leave Krypton in the first place? Sounds like a good place to live."

Kara smiled at her at this. However, it wasn't the cheery one. It was more of a bittersweet one. "My home is gone Alex. Krypton blew up when I was a 13-year-old. My parents were able to send me to Earth with the task of protecting Superman. But my cursed luck interfered, and I got stuck in Phantom zone for a really long time. That's why I have claustrophobia. Phantom Zone is a place where, as the name suggests, there is nothing. Even time does not pass there. Day and night spent looking at nothing would leave anyone scarred for life. The voices in my head originated there to keep away my loneliness."

Alex took a moment to applaud the mental fortitude of Kara. If she had to go through half of what she had gone through, forget smiling, she would just be a shell living. And here in front of her was Kara, still smiling at her. How can she remain angry at a person who had gone through so much? And what was even the reason? That she didn't tell her that she was alien. She had not told her so much about herself too. 

"You all right there? Still angry?"

"Huh. No no. I was just thinking about everything you told me and why you didn't tell me anything. Was I the cause for this somehow? I mean if you aren't comfortable with me or anything you can just tell okay."

Kara had a knowing look on her face, as if expecting this. "The last few people I told my secret were killed right in front of me Alex. You can guess why I was a little skeptical about all this."  
Damnit. Why didn't she think of that? Alex wanted to scream at herself. Not everything is about her.

"If you want to change your partner, I can tell J'onn. I completely understand if you don't want to work with me. I should have come clean some time ago and I take full responsibility for that." Kara said while nervously trying to gauge what Alex was thinking.

"NO!" Alex almost screamed. "I mean no. You don't need to do anything like that Kara. You are one of the best partner and friend a person can ask for. You know, before you just inserted yourself in my life, no one really cared to even ask how my day was going. And suddenly you came with your smiles and made my days a bit more bearable. I can't be angry at you for hiding something personal when all I do is the exact same." she looked at Lena. "I am sorry for my behavior earlier. I shouldn't have snapped at you."

"Apology accepted." Lena replied graciously. "My threat still stands though. Not a single word to any soul."  
Before she could say, she was engulfed in a hug. She didn't need to guess from who it was. Kara was holding her tight with tears streaming down her face. "Thank You." she said in her ears softly.  
After a really long hug, Kara separated herself and wiped away her tears using her sleeve. The cheery smile was finally back on her face. "Want to stay for dinner?"

"No, she is not. I don't want to cook with the limited supplies. There is barely enough for you alone." Lena cut in.

"Please. I'll wash the dishes. Please please." Kara pouted.

Lena looked like she wanted to resist. After struggling for a few moments, she gave in. "Fine. Put that pout away. Four years together and I still can't say no to that face." she mumbled.

"Yay. You are going to looove Lee's cooking." Kara cheered.

Alex watched the scene with amusement. She was with a weird personality of sunshine, and in that moment, she could not find anything wrong with it at all. Maybe the world needs more sunshine after all.

Maybe that's what she needs too. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you had a good time reading this. It took some time to write as I was swamped by work. I think it should answer a few curiosities. More things will be gradually revealed over the next few chapters.
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated. :)


	5. Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. This is a slow chapter, kinda like a breather before real action begins. Hope you all enjoy this.

CHAPTER 5: CHANGES

Changes. Alex was thinking about changes, specifically the ones in life. Just how quickly one's life changes. Around 18 months ago, she was gunning for her PhD, with no goals in mind about what to do next. Today, she is working for a secret facility and finally she has some purpose in her life. She can't imagine what her life will be in a year from now. Maybe she would look around like she was doing right now, wondering how swiftly it all happened.

  
Speaking of changes, now that she knew Kara's secrets, her life was going through another adjustment period. The biggest change she was undergoing herself was about her habit of keeping everything checked inside her. She still had trouble speaking about her past and she really wanted to change that. It didn't seem fair at all that Kara always told her snippets about her life and all she had to add was a nod and acknowledgement.

  
Her philosophical thought train about her issues came to a grinding halt when Winn called out for her. She got up and walked towards the hub. She was surprised to see J'onn standing there. She quickly made her way around the table and stood beside Winn. It had been a couple of days since Kara's panic attack and she still had not come in for work. She had called her a few times to know about her progress but according to Lena, it was slow. Kara was having trouble sleeping and if somehow, she was able to sleep, she was awoken by terrible nightmares. 

  
"Good morning Alex. How have you been?" J'onn greeted her.

"Fine. Not much going on with my life right now." she replied.

"You should cherish these moments. Usually our lives are moving so fast that we forget the times when we stood still. Don't forget, these silent times are the ones which help us in the loud ones."  
Alex didn't know how to reply to this piece of advice, so she simply nodded her assent. She directed her attention to Winn, who was typing something so fast that her eyes were having trouble trying to follow his fingers. 

"Why did you call me here?" she inquired him.

"Lt. Maggie contacted us. Says she has some information about the case and absolutely refused to share it to anyone except you. You might wanna schedule a meeting or something with her. Also, J'onn wanted to debrief the team. We are waiting for Vasquez."

Vasquez popped out of the corner at that exact moment, as if expecting someone to call out her name. "Did someone want to talk to me?"

"Yes, I believe I do." J'onn spoke up. Making sure that he had the attention of every party present he continued. "First of all, I would like to tell you that your work in the past few months has been absolutely phenomenal. The higher ups are impressed to say the least. However, there were some suggestions made in the last meeting with the leaders. According to them, we should subtly start coming out of shadows. This step is to make the public more receptive and assured about the presence of aliens among them."

"Another thing which was tossed around was an initiative. If any alien is considered guilty of any crime, we can detain and keep them in the desert base until they are reformed enough to rejoin society. Now these are not immediate changes, but you should be ready for a few changes in our operating style." he regarded everyone for a moment. "Another point I want to talk about is the personnel. On Captain Kara's request, Vasquez, you are temporary leader of the ground team until she can join us again. Winn, we are having interviews for someone to help you out. Be sure to input your opinions there."

Alex absorbed the information given. If Kara wanted someone to take her place for some time, it meant that her condition was worse than what she thought. Before she could make up her mind to visit her later, a new voice joined the conservation.  
"No offence to anyone Sir, but that's the stupidest idea ever." Everyone turned around to see Kara standing beside a wall. She looked, well she didn't look bad, but anyone with eyes could see that she was struggling quite a bit. She faltered in her next step but before anything could go wrong, Alex covered the distance between them and slung Kara's arm around her shoulder to support her. 

"What are you doing? Shouldn't you be resting?" she whisper-shouted at her.

"I'll be fine. Just needed a few files to work upon. My mind gets to weird things whenever left stagnant for a long time. Is stagnant right word here?"

"Yeah it is. Also, you could have told me to bring them. What was the point of coming here again?"

Their conversation was interrupted by J'onn's cough. "Would you two like to share what are you talking about? Because if its personal talk, then I would suggest speaking to each other some other time."

"Of course. Sorry about that." Kara apologized. "As I was saying earlier, the idea of us becoming public is laughably bad. You should tell the higher ups to shove it. Anyone with a little bit of brain can understand the severe problems this would bring us."

"May I ask why you think so?" J'onn enquired. This was one of the things that Alex loved about him. He never made your opinion fell invalid. Doesn't matter how outlandish your thoughts and ideas, he would always listen to them with full attention.

"If we go public, doesn't matter in what form, what do you think organizations like Agents of Liberty would do? Any agent or person affiliated to DEO would be hunted down worse than animals. And that is not even the worst part. Public means scrutiny and micromanagement. We will not be able to bend a single rule to our benefit. The politicians who are trying to make this happen don't care a single thing about people. They just want something to blame if things go south and considering how aliens are treated all over the world, things are going to get bad sooner or later. So, before we all just become guinea pigs, I would request you to scrap this idea before it becomes something we all would regret."

J'onn didn't reply to this. He looked deep in thought. Kara, who was still being supported by Alex whispered in her ear. "So, I read a lot of things in the last few days. My vocabulary wasn't all out of whack, right? I am still confused why the magazine used guinea pigs as a word for sacrifice. Aren't pigs just pigs?" 

"They are used in experiments because their DNA is pretty similar to humans. What did you guys used experiment back at your home?"

"Uhh. We didn't have that many diseases. I think I am one of the first to get a major in generations. The smaller ones were treated in simulations or by AI."

"Damn! You really have a bad luck."

"Nah! Lena makes it all equal."

Alex saw J'onn smiling at both of them in her peripheral. She elbowed Kara to redirect her attention to the main conversation in the room before she gets into another ramble about how great Lena is. Once he saw that their attentiveness was back on him, he gave his reply. 

"I'll see what I can do. You have some great and valid points. Also, please go home. You aren't helping anyone by delaying your recovery."

"It's just lack of sleep sir. I will be fine as long as there is a Sun above our heads. Plus, I had some work to do here. I'll be gone under an hour."

J'onn nodded at her and took his leave. Winn and Vasquez were standing around Kara awkwardly, not really understanding what to say. It really wasn't their fault that they didn't know what actually happened to her. Kara looked at them once before giving a smile. "Why are all so gloomy? I am not dying or anything. Seriously, all I need is some sunshine. Sleep is for the weak anyway."   
Vasquez spoke after her. "I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity ma'am. I'll do my best to not let you down."

Kara separated herself from Alex. "You are going to do a great job Vas. Just feel free to give me a call if there is any trouble, all right. I am going to my office right now. Alex please come in like 10 minutes. I need to talk a bit." She hobbled away slowly. All three of them watched her go with somber looks on their faces.

"She is really good at hiding her pain, isn't she?" Winn questioned.

"Yeah... yeah she really is. You know, I asked her a couple of days ago how she even smiles after going through so much in life. She replied and I quote, "How will being in depression help me in anyway? At least when I smile, I can make someone else's day better; maybe they are having a day worse than mine and me being happy injects some happiness in them. Sometimes that's all you need to do to make your day satisfying." Just the sheer willpower she has awes me." Alex said."

"Damn." Winn spoke after a momentary pause. "We really need more people like her in the world."

"Yes we do. We do indeed." Alex reiterated before taking her leave. She had some time to kill before going to Kara's office, so she decided to head to cafeteria to pick something up for her. She had not forgotten about Lucy's advice of kale smoothie. The attendant gave her a very weird look on her order but in the end, she got it. After walking around some more, she decided to go visit her.

Kara was going through some of her files. Her face was all scrunched up adorably in concentration. In that moment, Alex was able to clearly see how young Kara was. Barely 25 and she had gone through more hardships than some people did in their entire lives; and instead of giving up, she just stood her ground and weathered all the storms because she knew that time will bring changes.   
She knocked on the door to announce her presence. "Hey there! I come bearing a small gift." She said thrusting the kale juice in Kara's hand.

"What's in this?"

"Just drink. You are gonna love it." Kara nodded excitedly and took a sip. Her face changed from pure elation to disgust so quickly that the Flash would have trouble keeping up. She spit out all she drank before putting the cup down and moving away from it as if it was contagious.

"Whyyyy?" she lamented. "Why would you do this to me? Have I done anything wrong to you?"

"Noo. What happened? I thought you loved kale smoothie." Alex asked clearly confused by the turn of events.

"What in the world made you think that?" she was eyeing the smoothie suspiciously.

"Umm. Lucy."

"Lucy? Lucy Lane? I am going to murder her." Kara spoke. "You know what, that would be going easy on her. I am gonna get Lois to back me and destroy her." she had a mischievous glint in her eyes. Neither of them spoke further. Kara was obviously enjoying her revenge plan and Alex was thinking of what just happened.

"Um... Should I be worried?" Alex asked tentatively.

"Huh? Oh yeah. I am still angry at you. You could have asked me first before just making me taste kale. I mean anything else would have been fine, but I am not forgiving this one easy. You better watch your back."

"Sure." she replied unimpressed. "You really need to work on your conspirator voice. So, why did you call me?"

"I mean I called you to give a token of our friendship but considering what just happened to me, I don't think I can do the same. What if you betray me and make me eat green stuff? How can I ever trust you?"

"You just want food out of this, don't you?" Her question was met with an overenthusiastic nod by Kara. 

"Bingo. Potstickers, if I may specify. Lee doesn't let me eat it much."

"Probably for the best. That can't be good for your health, alien stomach or not." Now Kara was just pouting at her. She sighed. "Not cool. I'll make you a deal. Next time on stakeout, potstickers on me."

"Yesss!" she exclaimed happily and dug something out of her back pocket. "You can have this now considering you have re-earned my trust." Looking closely, it looked like a normal smartwatch.

"Uh! I already have several watches Kara. But thank you I guess." she replied taking the aforementioned watch.

"And that's why you shouldn't judge something just on first impression" Kara remarked before pushing a few buttons. "This is wired to my watch. If you ever need my help or are stuck in some emergency, you can tap five times on it. It will direct your location with your message to my watch. It's Lena's design. She actually made it to monitor my vitals in case something happened. That's how she found out so quickly about my panic attack the other day. You could do that too if you wanted to. Anyway, I made some changes to it so that it acts like an emergency beacon. Just tap and I’ll be there."

"Thank you!" Alex replied sincerely. "Who else has it?"

"Four people. Me, you, Lee and someone I am not at the liberty to tell you. Sorry about that."

"No worries. I will use this wisely. Thanks once again." Kara smiled brightly before hugging her. Another thing Alex found changing about her. Usually she hated physical contact, but Kara's hugs were something like a miracle and somehow, she did not mind them at all.

"I need to go now. I really should take it easy until I start getting some sleep. Sun really does not work that much there." Kara laughed at herself.  
Alex decided to walk out with her. "You are not getting any sleep?" she asked a little worried.

"I napped yesterday for a few hours. Besides that, no. Every time I close my eyes; it's like I am stuck in an endless loop of nothing. It has not been this bad since my teenage years. The voices don't help either. But don't worry much, I'll be okay. I always am at the end." her voice faded by the end.

"Take as much time as you need. I will hold down the fort here for you."

"Thank you." Kara said before getting into a cab. "Visit me anytime. I am usually up to nothing anyway. Lena comes home early but I really should talk to a few other people than her. I don't think she has the energy to deal with me for a full day alone. "

"Sure. See you soon."

She watched the cab drive away before remembering she needed to talk to Maggie. She dialed her immediately so that she does not forget it due to working on something else. Her call got picked up a while later.  
"Hey Danvers. I think I got something big. How quick can you get to Noonans?"

"Half an hour."

"See you then. Make this a bit quick. I don't know if the window would be long or not." she said before cutting off. Alex did not waste any time and departed for Noonans at that very moment.

Half an hour later she was sitting a police cruiser with Maggie overlooking the road adjacent to Noonans. "I went through the contact list of the vic. Everyone else is accounted for except two people. One is this guy, Jason Lamar. He has been caught 5 times for multiple crimes including vandalism and threats of murder. Interesting thing about Mr. Lamar, no one knows where he was at the time of murder. Another interesting fact, he frequents to Noonans often. So, we are going to trail him and look for anything out of character. Here's how he looks." Maggie explained showing her a picture. 

"Understood. Why don't we just knock on his door though? Saves everyone's time." Alex enquired.

"This wasn't a one-man job. His partner may be long gone if we do something to him. In my opinion, its best if we collect all the data first."   
Alex nodded at this. And so, they waited. Another change Alex found in herself was the weird sensation in her stomach whenever Maggie smiled at her with dimples full on display. At first, she thought it was more of a hunger thing; she does have a weird eating pattern, much to Kara's horror; but repeated occurrence of this phenomenon around Maggie made her think that it had to do something with the detective. She ignored it though, now was not the time for fooling around. They were professionals and they had a job to do. Her thoughts about Maggie's dimples came to sudden halt when Maggie whisper screamed.

"There is our guy. Look at 10'o clock. Guy in grey shirt."

Alex looked around until she saw him. The man entered Noonans and quietly sat down in an empty booth. He ordered something to eat and sat there reading a newspaper. "Doesn't look like anything interesting." Alex spoke her mind.

"It's too early to tell. He is one of the two suspects. There is a chance he might not be our guy. We just need to be cautious."  
After fifteen minutes or so, he paid for the services and walked out. Alex and Maggie got out of their cruiser and started following him. He walked slowly to the bus station and climbed into a downtown bus. Both of them did the same. Everything looked completely uninteresting to Alex. The man was just going about his day without any care in the world. Sure, he was a bit rude to other passengers, but majority of the people were anyway. He got down near the Phoenix mall and looked around for a bit. Alex quickly hid in the crowd to make sure that he did not see her face. Confirming whatever he wanted to, he started walking again. His destination was confirmed when he walked into a gym. 

"Hmm. Both of us should not go inside. We may lose him." Maggie spoke to Alex. "I will go in. You make sure that he doesn't run off to anywhere."

"Got it." Alex told Maggie, who was already on her way inside. She called Winn immediately after her departure. 

"What's up?" he replied.

"I need you to tap into some cameras. Near the Work-It-Out gym. I will transfer you a picture. If he shows up in any of them, tell me immediately." Alex explained.

"Gotcha." 

And thus, the wait began. Around an hour later, she heard some commotion coming from the gym. A moment later, Jason came running outside the front door. Alex at once started running towards him. Seeing her, he ran in the opposite direction. Despite her trainings, he proved to be a much faster runner. After chasing him for a few minutes, she lost him. Someone called her phone at that exact time. Without thinking she picked it up. 

"Winn! Where?" she asked quickly.

"Take the next right. I am also directing Lt. Maggie towards him. You should be able to box him in soon." She followed his instructions right away and ran to her next right. 

"Keep going. Next left. Then second right."

"On it." 

Making the turns, she saw him running right ahead of her. Unknown to him, Maggie was coming directly towards him. He saw her a moment later and immediately panicked, running into an alleyway with a dead end.  
"And mouse in the trap. Or whatever the saying is. All yours now Alex." Winn said sounding proud in himself.

"Good work Winn. Talk to you later." she cut the call and walked towards Jason.

"Who are you guys? Why are you following me? I have not done anything wrong this time." he asked in a tired voice.

"NCPD." Maggie showed off her badge. "Why did you even run if you have done nothing wrong?"

"You were following me since Noonans. A man must be suspicious if two gals just start walking behind him menacingly. What was I supposed to do?" he defended himself.

"All right. I will cut to the chase. Your friend, Parker is dead. Someone murdered him. And you my friend, are the prime suspect."

"What? No, no. I have not done anything. You are going after the wrong person here. I-I can give you guys proof. That is what you want right? I can give you proof that I was nowhere near him anytime. Just ask me."

"All right. Where were you on early morning of 22nd?" Maggie asked.

"22nd? Umm. Just wai-Yeah. I was going outside the city to visit my ma. Just check the cameras. I will be there. Gua-Guarantee."

"That's the thing pal, you weren't. There is no trace of you on the 22. Anything else you have to say before I take you in."

"I-I'm telling the truth. Why would I murder Parker? I had nothing against him. As-Ask Peter. He was the one with whom he worked with. I have not even met them since months. I am telling the truth. Believe me."

"Sure I do buddy. Sure, I do." Maggie spoke before calling a cruiser to take him to the police station. "Nice work Danvers. It was quick thinking to involve Winn. Want to come to the station?"

"I will be there later."

"All right. Just give me a message before dropping off. See you then."

\------------------------------------------------------------------

In the evening Alex found herself standing outside a bar. Well her actual plan was to go to the police station, but Maggie told her to meet her there. It was a hole in the wall kind of place and looked very run down. She went inside and the sight was not bad. It was decently clean and there were a few people mingling here and there. She found Maggie sitting in a booth and made her way towards her.

"Hey Maggie. What's up with meeting here all of a sudden?" she said sitting in the opposite seat.

"I just wanted to change the scenery. Every time we meet, it's either in a police station or a crime scene." Maggie cleared her throat quickly before asking. "So how has your day been?"

"All right. It was usual with a mix of Kara."

"Is she holding up all right?" she asked with a sad tone.

"She will be fine. That girl has the most willpower in the history of universe maybe. Stop feeling guilty for no reason."

"Hmm. Anyway, we got the wrong guy." Maggie told in a somber tone.

"What? Weren't you pretty sure about him?"

"Yeahh. But you see.... I was sure that he has done something wrong and he did that. Just not related to our case." she said in a small voice.

"Care to explain a little bit?"

"He was smuggling drugs that morning. He cracked pretty quickly and there was some evidence for that too. In short, my colleague solved his case, and we are left at square one again. But don't you worry. We still have the second guy. He might be the one. We are going to raid his house tomorrow."

"Hmm. Well, let us see what happens tomorrow. Right now, it's a waiting phase." 

"Yeah." Maggie got up and asked. "What would you like to drink?"

"Beer is fine." Maggie nodded and returned a couple of minutes later with two beers. And fine it was. The place served damn good beer. 

"Hey, I don't want to get to personal, but are you single?" Maggie nervously asked before hurriedly finishing her thoughts. "Because it seems like you are single. Not that there is anything wrong with being single but just... I wanted to ask."

Alex laughed at the nervous stammer. "Yeah I am single. But don't you dare try to set me up with someone." 

"Why's that?"  
"I don't do relationships. I know you are going to say that it's because I have not found the right person and you may be right. But I am not in a place in my life where I can give another person time and it would be straight up cruel to drag someone else into a relationship with me. Maybe sometime in the future but not right now. Why were you asking again?"

"Uhh... Nothing." Maggie spoke in a disappointed voice. "In all honesty, I wanted to ask you out after this case. But I respect that you don't want a relationship and I won't bring this up again. Promise."

Alex's mind was fried by this information. She had no idea Maggie liked her that way. She opened her mouth to say something but quickly shut it before she spoke some nonsense and offended her. Thinking hard about what to speak, she said, "I am sorry. Maybe someday. But as I said, I am really not in mood of having someone be a part of my life. Sorry again."   
This conversation was getting cringey and awkward by every word spoken and Alex could not do a single thing to avoid it. If the Earth opened and swallowed her at that exact moment, she would have no qualms with it. But alas, she did not have such fortune. However, Maggie was thinking along the same line and decided to change the topic to something different.

"No worries. We can pretend that conversation never happened. So, how did you end up in DEO?"

"I will only tell if you tell me why you became a cop."

"That's an easy one. I wanted to do something to better my locality. I spent my teenage years in a not so safe neighborhood where drugs and guns killed many. Being on the force helped me to do good to others so that they don't go down a dark path. On a more personal note, I was always considered useless when I was a child. And for some reason, it got stuck into that little child's head that once I became a police officer, no one would call me that. Only if I knew at that time how wrong I was. All this hate, it doesn't go away just by me being there." she explained. "Your turn." 

"I wanted to prove myself. It's pretty difficult to make your accomplishments mean something when you come from a family of geniuses. Both my parents are accomplished scientists. Everything I did was nothing to what they had already achieved. I still have a hard time convincing myself that what I am doing is something that makes difference in the world. After finishing my PhD, I had no idea what to do with my life. Suddenly, I get a call and an offer to join DEO. Accepting this was probably the quickest decision I have made in my life." Alex told. "I was raised since childhood to be best. Sure, my parents were not cold or abusive, but they weren't exactly what you would call supportive. Thus began my never-ending cycle to be the best, smartest in the room. You can guess how it went. Didn't have any social life, almost went to depression. Truth to be told, I am still coming to terms with the fact that it is not really possible. There will always be someone better than me and there is so much I need to learn. All I can do is improve."

Maggie looked at her with intrigue throughout the time she spoke. "Damn. Well, to keep improving in life." she raised her beer and it was met with a clink by Alex's. They chatted about a few things the next half an hour.

Alex had a really good time. She did not have a social life at all, considering she had the same number of friends as number of dinosaurs in the world. Well, Kara was her friend but on usual days the poor girl didn't even have enough time to spend with her wife. And it would not be considerate of her to cut even more of her free time. 

It was a relieving experience to talk about her baggage, knowing that the person sitting in front of her is not going to judge her. Another thing swirling inside her mind was that maybe she made a mistake turning down Maggie. She seemed a genuinely good and kind person and she was certainly better than most of the people she had dated. The reason she wanted to stay be her decision was that she was already going through a lot of changes. Change in work attitude, social life, her viewpoints on certain topics and she was barely holding it all together. She really did believe that dating at that point of her life would be nothing short of disaster. She needed to figure herself out first; before letting another person in. And she needed a bit of time to properly self-reflect so that she could hold onto her mind. Maybe something could happen to them down the road.

"10 a.m." Maggie's voice broke her inner monologue.

"Hmm?"

"Meet me at 10 a.m. tomorrow. We need to check the other guy. He lives on the outskirts so it's going to take some time."

"Affirmative. You heading out right now?"

"Well I don't want to. I have company of a beautiful woman right here, but I already have some plans for the night." She flirted before they both headed out the bar. A chill breeze was flowing making the night colder than usual. Maggie walked towards her bike and hopped on before addressing Alex. "Well, I had a great time talking. I hope you would not be against doing this again sometime."

"I had a great time too. Thank you for the evening."

"It was my pleasure. If this were a movie, I would make some cheesy remark but my mind is coming up blank so I would just leave. See you around Danvers."

"See you too Sawyer." she spoke and headed in the opposite direction. She knew that she needed to sort out her life soon and what better place to start than the comfort of home. She had a long way ahead of her and the sooner she figures out what she wants to be, the better it would be.

As Lena told her a few days ago, 'Be the person you want to be. If you let the world decide what is the best for you, you would be living a miserable and pathetic excuse of a life. And that life is of no worth to anyone.' Maybe it was time she decided to step out of her parents' shadow and did something for herself. Not because she had to prove anything to anyone, just because she wanted to do it. 

Maybe that could a turning point in her life, one which she would look back years later and think, that is where I changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another change from the show and you would have already guessed it, Alex here knows she is a lesbian. She just has not try to date anyone for long since she thought her peers would not approve. Don't worry though, Maggie is not going to give up after one try.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.  
> Stay safe!


	6. Virtuous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of stuff happens. First proper action scene.
> 
> Also this has Lena's POV for like half of chapter. I think I am going to write much more of her POV in the later chapters. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

CHAPTER 6: VIRTUOUS

December 10, 10 PM

  
The chill air flowing outside was making sure that everyone knew holiday season was around the corner. These are the kind of night where all you want to do is snuggle with your blankets with some hot cocoa while watching some random television show. Lena, however, did not have the fortune to do so. She was looking through Kara's injury report, still trying to find everything she could for some kind of possible fix. It had been the only thing she had done in her free time for over 18 months to no avail. The thing which itched her the most was how someone in a remote third world country had access to kryptonite, which is supposed to be as rare as a unicorn. As far as she knew, only three people in the world knew how to synthesize pure green kryptonite. She herself, Lex and Kara, who was taught by her. And it was not like you could google it to figure it out. A year of information gathering, and she had no idea who else cracked the puzzle.

She looked at Kara's sleeping form in their bed, who had finally been able to sleep for a few hours continuously. Useless. That is what she was feeling. Utterly useless. One of the greatest brains of this generation; could not figure out how to help her own wife. She wondered in these moments why Kara even bothered to save her when she was spiraling down into anger and revenge. Deciding to call it a day on her investigation of Kara's impairment, she hopped on her research project. 

"Hope, tell me when Kara wakes up." she told her AI interface before moving into the living room. Hope was still in development phase, but she had made enough advancement that she was able to use it for small purposes. Its voice was something which was next on her agenda.

She sat down on the dining table with her tablet and started her work, quickly getting engrossed in it. The next time she looked up at the clock, it was showing 12:30 AM. Surprised at herself, she began to wind up her work. The silence surrounding her was broken suddenly by the loud doorbell. 

"What?" She did not believe her ears at first. No one she knew would visit them at midnight without a prior notice at least. She quickly checked into the cameras she had installed at the front gate and found a 20 something woman shivering in front of her door. Before she could decide what to do, the girl once again rang the bell. Arming herself with a kitchen knife, she tip-toed towards the door. 

"Is someone in there? Please open up." the woman spoke before ringing the bell again.

"Who are you?" Lena shouted back.

"Oh thank god. My name is Nia Nal. This is Kara Zorel's house, right?" 

Who the hell is Nia Nal? Lena thought hard before remembering about the supposedly new friend Kara made who worked in the press. She was not going to let her in easily though, who knows what her motives were. As far as she knew, Kara never told her the address to their home.  
"How did you find out the address?"

"I will tell you everything. Just let me inside. Please, please! This is a life or death situation."

She did not respond to that. While she was checking in the cameras if the woman was really alone, a notification from Hope came through telling her that Kara was waking up. Considering her options, she decided to open the door a little to look at Nia. If she were acting, Lena would have to give her major props as she looked absolutely terrified and frightened. Nia looked at her with wide eyes awaiting Lena's next words.

"Get in. You better have a good reason." she told her which caused Nia to sigh with great relief. 

"Thank you so much. I would not have disturbed you guys if it was not a serious emergency." she spoke quickly before rushing inside to the living room.

Lena followed her at a slower pace. Entering the living room, she found Nia sitting in the chair adjacent to the couch. "Start talking right now", she ordered placing the kitchen knife back in its place. 

"Umm, W-Where is Kara? No offense b-but I am not telling you until she gets here." Nia stammered eyeing the knife.

"Listen here. You don't get to come to my home at midnight and make demands. Start talking or you already know where the door is."

At that exact moment, Kara slowly walked down the stairs, yawning all the way. Every time Kara slept for a few hours, she woke up all confused as if her brain was trying to reconfigure what she is supposed to do. She looked around for something before her eyes landed on Nia. No one spoke for a whole minute in which Kara looked like she was trying to place Nia's face.

"Umm... Nia? Is that you?" she spoke in a sleepy voice. "Wha... what are you doing here?"

Unbeknownst to Kara, she was speaking Kryptonese. Nia did not understand a single thing and looked at Lena for support. If she was surprised hearing Kara speak a different language, she did not let it show. Lena quickly changed the topic before Nia started putting two and two together.

"It's her mother tongue. She is from Iceland. And she asked the same question as I did, what are you doing here?" she covered up.

Kara rubbed her eyes and was becoming more and more aware by each passing second. She sat across Nia and looked at her watch. Nia observed her closely before starting to speak.  
"Okay, okay. I will start with the big stuff first. I am half alien and I think Agents of Liberty or whatever their secret alien hating group is called is trying to get to me. I need help."

Lena raised her eyebrow at her. Telling them that she was of alien heritage despite not knowing them personally was showcasing how deep in trouble she was. She changed her expression from surprised to a cool one before anyone could blink. "How do you know about them? As far as I know their presence is not known to public. And why would they be after you?" she questioned.

"How do you kno-" Kara looked at Lena taking a momentary pause. "Hey! Stop hacking into DEO servers. You might get caught. Winn is pretty smart with computers."

"As if." Lena scoffed. "They thought I was a concerned civilian when I basically told them that I can pull data from their servers without any trace. Who in their right mind buys that I am offering help without any catch? Besides, I have seen better systems for colleges than the one they have employed in the DEO."

"Still, be careful. Overconfidence is always dangerous." 

Nia was watching both of them bicker with a flabbergasted look. "Hey! How come I just told you that I am an alien with powers you guys did not even blink? Shouldn't you be... I don't know, more surprised or something?"

Kara took a deep breath hearing the question. She looked much better after sleep and Lena was happy about that. She had always struggled with nightmares, but this episode was reminiscent of the young Kara, who was still new to the Earth.

"I know you know about me Nia. The better question would be how?" Kara declared.

"Wha-What are you talking about?" Nia questioned.  
Lena wanted that answer too. No way Nia found out that Kara was not human after just one interaction. It even took her a few days to figure everything out. Kara addressed her first, "Don't get mad. Let her explain first okay?"

"Look at what you are doing." she told Nia. "You have come to a person, in the middle of the night I might add, for help when you don't even know where or for whom I work for. On top of that, we have only met in person twice and messaged for a total of seven times. You started your plea with the fact that you are an alien without any fear of judgement when you did not even need to disclose that particular information. You could have gone to any authority but no, you instead decided to put all your trust in me. The biggest hint to this, no response from you when I just spoke in Kryptonese. Combine all these facts, you already know that I am a Kryptonian. I would ask again, how?" 

Nia stared dumbly at Kara for a whole minute. "What even, h-how? Ne-Never mind. Now I know this is going to be hard to believe in, but I can see the future. Well, I can dream of future to be more specific. When I sleep, I get like glimpses of the future. Umm... I saw you fighting something huge and your eyes were all red and glowy. You were also fl-floating. And before you say that it's just my imagination, I can give proof." she looked at Lena. "Y-You are Lena Luthor. The first date you both went to was stargazing in an observatory just outside Metropolis. A-And, Kara's cousin is Superman."

Ok, this was just unnerving now for Lena. No one except Kara and her knew about their first date. And she knew for a fact that they both had not told anyone about it. Either Nia was telling the truth about her powers or they were in very deep trouble. Seeing her face, Nia continued, "I k-know it seems cr-creepy, but you have t-to believe me. You both told this to... I do not know who it was, in the near future. Pl-Please, I am telling the truth." she told with tear filled eyes.

Kara got up from her seat and walked into the kitchen. She returned a few moments later with two glasses of water. She gave one to Lena and the other to Nia. "Calm down Nia. I have seen weirder things than people seeing future. Just take a deep breath, ok?" she spoke softly to Nia.

While Kara was calming her down, Lena was thinking about the implications of seeing the future. "Nia. How many times the things you see come true?" she asked.

"M-Most. Sometimes they are changed in some way but mostly they happen exactly as I see them."

"Makes sense. Until and unless you interfere, everything will go on as it was supposed to." Lena thought out loud. "Who else knows about your powers? Is this why those Liberty guys are trying to get you, because they consider your powers an asset?"

"I-I don't think so. No one knows except my family and I asked them yesterday; they have not told anyone anything." Nia grabbed her bag which she brought with her and pulled out some notes and cut-outs. "I think I found out something I was not supposed to. I am writing an article on the death which Kara is investigating. It was all going fine until I pulled some files from the victim's place of employment, Lord Industries. You guys may have heard of it. I got them from a source yesterday who told me that he needed this to get out and when I returned to my apartment, there was a note attached on the front door." 

She showed the note to both of them. 'Final Warning. Stay away.' was written on it with blood red color. There was nothing extraordinary about the note itself, but Lena faintly recognized the symbol on the back. While she tried to figure it out, Kara asked a few questions to Nia. 

"What happened next?"

"I ignored it and went to my work today as usual. I have this gut feeling that I was being followed everywhere I went. In the evening I got a message from an unknown number, 'Drop the case, otherwise we will make sure that it would be the last piece you ever work on.' I never went home after that. I tried to change my route again and again so that the people trailing me might get confused before deciding to come here."

Kara nodded at her explanation and looked at the various tidbits of information. Lena grabbed her attention by poking her in the stomach, "Kar. Look at this. I have seen this somewhere."

"Seems like a normal sign to me." Kara spoke after inspection.

"It's from somewhere. I can't recall it right now, but I have seen this before." 

"Forget about it for now Lee. We need to trace the number from which Nia got the message. We might get something." Lena agreed with the statement. The symbol seemed important, but it was not the priority right now. She got her laptop and started to work on tracking the number.

"Nia, help me. We need to figure out what info you have got in here."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 11, 8 AM

Lena was feeling drowsy. More than 6 hours of looking through every nook and cranny of the data and the only thing which panned out was the weird spikes in money in the victim's offshore bank account. The whole thing had weird and secretive written all over it, but there was no concrete evidence to pin anything. The biggest red flag was the amount of money Lord industries was paying the vic. No company paid that much to an undergrad who was not even a part of the main development or managing team. But again, this kind of evidence won't stick at all.

Nia had long fell asleep on the couch. Lena did not blame her for that, the girl obviously had a very tough day. She kind of forgets that not everyone is used to death threats like her. ' _There was a time when you were not used to them either_ '. She thought to herself but quickly discarded that thought. She had grown a lot since her days of anger and self-destruction. Rethinking about them won't do anyone any good.

The person responsible for her growth was currently assembling everything she was able to get from the information Nia brought. Seeing Kara work is always somehow very interesting for her. She regularly has trouble picturing the dorky goof do anything serious. Maybe it's because unlike Lena, she never brings her work home. She knew that 'work' Kara was very different from the cute dolt which hangs around her but the person in front of her was a weird mixture of both of those personalities. The concentrated frown on her face was not suiting the pink and blue pajamas. Plus, she did not seem deterred by the voices at all. They were obviously made up by Kara's brain to fight against isolation during her time in Phantom Zone, but still hearing them years after was nothing short of fascinating. 

"You are staring." Kara said out of nowhere.

"And what's the problem with that? I think I got the right to stare at you when I married you." Lena shot back playfully.

That got a short laugh out of Kara. "Yeah you did." she said getting up. "Want some coffee?"

"Yes please."

A few minutes later, they both were sitting on the dining table with a cup of hot coffee in their hands. "You going to work today?" Lena asked.

"Yeah. Probably later. I should share what we found with Alex and team, even if doesn't really lead anywhere. But first, I need to check Nia's apartment to make sure she is safe if she went home. Plus, there might be some clues there." Kara replied. 

"I'll stay with Nia then. I know she doesn't look like it, but she is traumatized. Leaving her alone does not seem like a good idea." 

"Hmm. I should get going. The quicker I get started the better it would be." Kara got up and kissed her. "Get some sleep, okay?"

"Sure. Come back safe." she said habitually.

"I always will." Kara said before going to change her clothes. She kissed her once again before going out, leaving Lena with a sleeping Nia. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

December 11, 9:30 AM

Kara was overlooking Nia's building for any signs of trouble. She was certain that there might be a few people lurking here and there, waiting for Nia to come home. Finding nothing out of place outside, she entered the building. 

' _Fifth floor. That does not seem much problematic. Much better than twenty-five floors_.' the voices mocked her. ' _Too soon_ ', she scolded them before taking the stairs. Usually she was able to take elevators up to 4-5 floors, but she did not want to risk it.

When she reached the front of apartment 504, she realized that she did not think this through properly. She did not have the keys and had no idea if Nia's roommate was home or not. ' _Well, let's hope I get lucky'_ , she thought and knocked on the door.  
Much to her surprise, the door was not closed. "Hello. Anyone in here?" she spoke loudly. 

She could hear someone moving around but no reply came. "Hello?" she said again to no reply. Deciding to go inside, she announced, "I am entering the apartment." 

Going inside, the first thing she noticed was a woman sitting in a chair in the living room. She was wearing a white mask with a smiley face and was busy on her phone. She made no comments on Kara's arrival. It was as if she was completely ignoring her.

"Umm... Who are you?" Kara asked. "Are you Nia's roommate?"

"Oh no. She is in her bedroom." the woman replied. Her voice caught Kara completely off guard. She was not expecting it to be so delirious and childish. On a closer look, the woman's mannerisms were childlike too. "She is asleep. Don't you worry about her." she said with twinkle in her dark brown eyes.

"Okay... Who are you then?"

"Don't worry. The whole world will know me soon enough. I am going to be a star." she replied in excitement. "But you do need a name to call me. Hmm.... let me think. Fortuna, no, no, that doesn't fit here... Vertigo... that's just stars... Yeah. Virtuous. You can call me Virtuous." 

' _Latin for strength. Not exact but pretty close_.' The voices quickly supplied. "Okay Virtuous. What are you doing in Nia's apartment?" she asked tentatively. The whole situation seemed pretty off to her.

"Waiting for her. I need to tell her something. She never came home though." Virtuous said getting sad. "But no need to worry now because you can tell her. Hmm... what did I need to say? Something.... no... yeah. Tell her she can forget the story she is working on. We do not care about her at all. If she won't publish her findings, we will leave her alone. I mean she could also get arrested, hacking a private company so it would all help her in the long run." 

There was complete silence after this statement. ' _Well that was an obvious lie. They are going to kill her_.' Kara was thinking of her next move and Virtuous seemed to be waiting for her reaction. She decided to put her cards on the table, "An Agent of Liberty then? It's good to see that you guys exist in flesh."

"Oh my god! You are so smart." Virtuous looked at her watch prior to continuing, "It doesn't really matter that much in the grand scheme of things but well done. I have been watching you from afar you know. Pretty impressive things."

"Thanks, I guess." Kara said awkwardly. 

"You are welcome. This all doesn't really matter, in the end you will die like rest of them anyway. It's a shame though, you could have done so many great things. But you know what, I will make your death enjoyable. Yeah... that's what I should do. Make deaths better for the people. It was pretty messy last time. He was screaming so loud." 

"Why did you kill him?"

"Oh I have killed so many." Virtuous sighed. "You have to be more specific. Name, place of death, anything to narrow it down."

"You know what I am talking about. The death in the scrapyard."

"Ohh... that guy. I remember him." she said glancing her watch. "You know what, I am going to solve your whole case. Saves everyone's time. Lord industries is trying to release some new medicinal drugs in the market for aliens since a long time. They did not get any authority to back them up so like any profit loving company, they decided to conduct illegal experiments on guys like him. And they paid good. I mean you already have seen the money, no wonder that dude never worked anywhere else."

"Fast forward to a few weeks ago, we recruited the guy to work for us. And he just... he had to snoop around. He was going to out us to the world. I mean... can you believe this guy's audacity? So in the end, we decided he had to go. Even hired two hitmen for the job but there is just... no satisfaction in that. I just... I had to do it with my own hands. Oh yeah.. I forgot, don't bother looking for them, everyone is dead. Something about tying up loose ends. Pff... 'loose', they are loose now that's for sure." she cackled at the end.

Kara wasn't sure if she believed the woman. She seemed to be talking in a childish voice, but her brain certainly wasn't a child's. She might be playing her for a fool. "Why are you telling me all this? I could arrest you right here." Kara questioned.

The masked woman erupted into a loud laughter hearing this. "You... you are so funny thinking you ca-can even catch me." she replied in between laughs. "I am telling you this because I don't care. You don't matter. Your brain does not matter. You think you are in the game, sweetie we are not even playing the same game. You are all just puppets to me and believe me... when my plan comes to life, the whole world will be changed forever." Her watch pinged at that exact moment.

"Ahh! It's my time to go. Well it was fun speaking to you. We should do this again sometime. Want me to visit your home? Nah.. maybe not. Your wife is scary."

"You are not going anywhere. I am taking you in." Kara walked towards Virtuous but was suddenly stopped by another laugh.

"You can try... but if you are going to waste your time stopping me, who is going to help Alex Danvers. She should be walking into a trap right about now." she said pointing her watch. "I mean I could just be lying, but do you want to take the risk."

Kara stopped dead in her tracks. She tried thinking what Alex was supposed to be doing at this time. ' _She has that raid with Maggie_.', she suddenly remembered. Keeping one eye at Virtuous, she took out her phone and called Alex. It did not go through. She tried it again to same result. Thinking of her options at the moment, she decided to call Lena. This time it was picked up on third ring. "Can you find where Alex is right now? I need exact location, if possible." she said without wasting any time.

"If she is wearing the watch then yes. Give me a minute." she heard some shuffling and tapping. "She is in a jammed zone. No communication in and out. I'll mark it on your watch."

"Thanks. Love you." she said before cutting the call. Virtuous was watching her with a curious look in her eyes. "See. I told the truth. I am going to enjoy what is going to happen. Why would I ruin my own fun?"

Kara's brain was working overdrive right now. If Alex was walking into a trap, which she probably was, she needed to warn her. But she also did not want to let the masked woman go away free. Maybe it was because how quickly Alex accepted her, or because she did not want to let another friend die, she decided to help her. She looked Virtuous dead in the eyes, "You got luck on your side today. But next time I see you, it will be the last time you will walk free on this Earth."

"We will see." Virtuous replied with glee. Kara turned around towards the door but decided to make sure that Nia's friend was fine first. Turning back, Virtuous was nowhere to be seen. An open window which was previously closed was all the trace she left behind. ' _Hmm. A powered individual. Wasn't that much surprising but still, something to deal with later._ ' She decided to focus on her task and entered the bedroom. Nia's friend seemed to be sleeping on her bed. On a closer inspection, she found that she was drugged. Nothing seemed life threatening though, so she decided to take her leave. 

Once back in her car, she ringed Winn. "Hey Kara. How have you been? It's pretty boring without you here." he said picking up.

"Not now Winn. I need you to find a way to contact Alex. Who is she out with?"

"Lemme check. Hmm... she went with Vasquez. Why do you need me to contact her? What's wrong?"

"If you can get through, tell them to walk away immediately. They are walking into some kind of trap. Most probably lethal. Send some backup to them right now." she told before cutting off and starting her car. "Rao let them be all right."

25 minutes later, Kara found herself looking at remains of what looked like a house. She quickly got out of her car and searched for others. She was on a farm and it would have been nostalgic if she weren’t scared for Alex. A deafening roar nearby grabbed her attention and she rushed towards the sound. There seemed to be a small barn nearby and looking closer she could see Vasquez firing at a huge figure. The bullets seemed to anger him more rather than doing any actual damage. Before she could reach them, the hulking figure threw Vasquez like a ragdoll and started looking for others. Kara quietly slipped inside the barn and noticed Alex tending to a wounded Maggie. 

"Don't shout." she whispered. Alex quickly turned around and looked at Kara with bewilderment in her eyes. "What happened here?"

"W-What are you doing here?"

"What do you think? This was a trap. I was trying to warn you guys but there is some sort of jammer here. I am guessing the big guy out is the one causing all the trouble."

"Uhh. It all happened so fast. One moment we were talking to Peter and he went to grab a few glasses of water, the next he is gone, and this huge monster hit Maggie and started chasing us around. Vasquez was trying to hold it off while I tried to call in for backup, but nothing is going out. Probably because of the jammer you mentioned." Alex explained.

"Hmm. Backup should be on its way. We probably need to lay low for some time. Lucky for us, it didn't seem to notice us here." As soon as she uttered these words, the wall behind her broke and the monster stormed inside.

"Nice jinx kid." Maggie spoke in pain. "Well it was nice knowing you all."

' _Think_.' the voices screamed at her. It would have been helpful if she had some time because before she could begin thinking of alternatives, the monstrosity was in her face and pushed her with such a force that she went flying and landed a few feet away.  
' _That's at least two broken bones_.' she thought getting up. She sighed before ordering her watch, "Start the count."

Before the giant could touch Alex, he was intercepted by a speeding Kara. She punched him in the face with enough force to make sure that he considered her a real threat. Her first objective was to make sure that the fight happens nowhere near Alex and Maggie. So, without giving him any chance to retaliate, she picked him up and threw him outside the barn. 

"Stay away." she instructed Alex before floating up from the ground towards where she chucked him.

He looked pissed. Standing over 10 feet tall, the monstrosity seemed straight out of a bad monster movie. Dark blue skin with bones protruding at weird angles, there was nothing human-like in the creature before her. 

"STAND DOWN." she said in a commanding voice, looking directly in the maroon eyes. She knew that this would have no effect at all, but she needed a few moments to compose herself. Using her powers was not something she did much and the influx of so much stuff at once could result in a sensory overload. Right now, she could hear 500 different things, which would be good for reconning an area but very very bad in a one on one fight. 

The creature eyed her warily before launching a flurry of attacks. He was surprisingly agile for his size. Unluckily for him, the best in Kara's arsenal was her speed, which was sometimes even too much for Kal. She easily side-stepped each attack before hitting him in the gut. He took a few steps back before trying to attack with more force. This time instead of dodging, Kara let the punch hit her. 

_Crunch_... The voice was followed by a loud wail as the monster clutched to his hand in pain. Before he could recover, Kara kicked him in the chest. He never hit the ground as she caught him prior to the impact and flew him high. Making sure that the height was not lethal, she punched him straight to the ground. He landed in a small crater and did not move for a few seconds. Kara thought she had won but he slowly got back up on his feet.

"Final warning. Don't blame me later." he struggled to stand upright but did not give up. Kara targeted his right leg as it looked damaged by the impact. Making sure to stay out of reach of his hooks and punches, she fixated her attack on his leg. Soon he was unable to stand up but kept fighting. She decided to end this miserable fight and punched him in the face, knocking him out cold. This time there was no movement by the monster.

"Right. One job done, now for the other one." she talked out loud before x-raying the nearby area for the location of jammer. Finding it in a nearby shed, she used her freeze breath on it before smashing it hard on the ground. It shattered into numerous pieces.

Throughout the fight she had a weird feeling as if someone were watching her. She could not let her mind wander then but now she was definitely sure that someone else was there too. She looked at the nearby canopy of trees and found someone in a hoodie and Virtuous's mask looking directly at her.

' _Can't be her. Mannerisms are all different_.' she thought. Noticing that they have been discovered, the person walked away from Kara's sight. She wanted to follow them but remembered that Maggie and Vasquez still needed help. Plus, she was sure that her body won't be able to handle another fight right then. So, she slowly floated towards Alex who was standing near the fallen beast.

"You all right?" Kara asked. Seeing her, Alex reached to touch her shoulder, but she quickly jerked away. "Don't touch right now please. I might hurt you. I haven't used my powers properly in years so everything is kind of whack right now."

"Your shoulder is all healed up. It was broken when he threw you away." Alex told her.

"Yeah. Praise the Sun." she joked. "Maggie saw everything, didn't she?" seeing Alex nod she sighed. "Lee's gonna be mad. Third person to know in less than 10 days. That must be a new record. Tell Maggie to be ready for a complete evaluation of her life by a stranger."

"Who's the third?"

"Someone who needed my help." her next words were stopped by the sound of sirens nearby. "Looks like backup's here. I am going to go now. Can't let more people know."

"Wait. What do I tell about what happened here? We need to get our stories straight."

"Umm. He tripped?" Kara offered.

"Oh sure. This giant was knocked out cold because he tripped." Alex replied sarcastically.

"Just tell them it was some mystical dude. They would eat it up."

"Ok. Now get out of here. I will think of something. We will talk later when I return your car." Alex shooed her away.

Kara looked around once for any trespassers before flying straight towards the clouds. She stumbled into her backyard a few minutes later. Turns out, you can't really fly well when you don't practice it. So instead of landing all majestically like her cousin, she face-planted into her garden's dirt right in front of tea drinking Lena.

  
"What the hell?" Lena said looking at her. "Why did you decide to eat dirt? I can buy some pot stickers if you want. I know I compared it to crap the other day but I didn't mean that."

"Haha. Very funny. Of all the things I did, you had to see that only." she replied.

"Why were you using your powers?" Lena asked becoming all serious. "Something related to me finding Alex's location."

"Yeah. It was an emergency. There was a 10-foot dude trying to murder them." she said getting up. "Stop now please." she spoke to her watch.

"3% cell damage. Huh. Workable. You are not doing any superheroics for at least 10 days and complete bedrest for 2. Now get inside before I make you repair the damage here."

"As you say, my lady." she fake bowed before rushing inside. She had completely forgotten that Nia was there too. She was looking at her as if judging her for landing in the dirt. "Oh, hey Nia. Better make yourself at home here. Your place is compromised right now. Not that this place isn't but me and Lee can at least help in case of emergency."

Nia nodded all confused. It was fine for Kara; she could explain to her later in detail. Right now, she had something else to work on. "Lee, where is my sketch book?"

"Same place. Last drawer on our bedside cupboard."

She quickly went into her room and came back with pencils and her sketching book before tearing off a page and starting to sketch Virtuous. She would not forget anything, thank her weird genetics which pretty much gave her photographic memory, but she wanted to get started on this as soon as possible. Virtuous had obviously underestimated her and gave a tiny detail away. They did not know anything about Nia's powers, and this gave Kara an edge over them. Sure, she was not in the game, but now she had someone who could completely change the game. 

And going to change the game she was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Hope you all enjoyed it.  
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated.  
> Stay safe!


	7. A fine evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! This chapter was supposed to go up yesterday but I was busy. So... here is the Christmas chapter a day late. Not much action here, but some setup for the next few chapters, which will probably be the most violent ones I have written yet.

CHAPTER 7 : A fine evening

  
December 24th, 2:00 PM

Alex was hanging around in an almost empty hub. Most of the employees were spending holidays with their families, as anyone remotely normal should. Regarding her own family, her mom had already told her that she would be busy in Metropolis for some speech she had to give on the 27th, so going to Midvale was off her plans. At least they both had a civil conversation for more than half an hour without being at each other's throats. It was a big win in her book, and she would take it without any complaint. 

Other than her, Kara and J'onn were also present in the DEO. Kara was mainly there to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and finish some of her work which was uncompleted due to her extended leave. She had started coming back only a week ago and Alex was grateful that she had recovered properly. Right now, she was teaching J'onn a few Disney songs across the hub and the sight was absolute hilarious to say the least. He had asked her about what the 'young people' usually listened to during holidays and unfortunately for him, half of Kara's playlist was always filled with Disney songs, regardless of the time of the year.

Alex quietly made her way towards them. J'onn silently pleaded her for help. Kara on the other hand, did not care about her arrival at all. She was busy singing. It would have been annoying if she didn't have such a beautiful voice. "Stop harassing him with your weird taste in music Kara. Not everyone likes what you do."

"You are mean." Kara pouted at her. "I would like to tell you that my taste in music is considered the best in the world."

"By who? A bunch of 7 years olds?" she shot back. 

"Hey! You are really hurting my feelings here. Santa is going to give you coal tonight. You will see." 

"As if I care."

J'onn laughed at their antics. "I know I should not take any sides, but Alex is right Kara." 

"You all are bunch of meanies." Kara whined. 

"Yeah sure." Alex snorted. 

"What are you doing here today Alex? Weren't you going to Midvale?" J'onn inquired.

"I was sir, but my mom had some emergency research meeting in Metropolis later this week, so she had to go there. And I don't have anyone else to go to… so here I am." she explained briefly.

Kara's face quickly underwent changes from sadness to glee. "That means you have absolutely nothing to do tonight. It is decided then. You are spending Christmas eve with me. It's going to be so much fun. You are invited too, Sir. Come around any time before 10." she told in excitement.

"Uhh... Do I get any say in this?" Alex asked.

"Of course not. This is your punishment for making fun of my 'weird' music taste. I will drag you myself if you don't arrive tonight." Kara told her. There goes her plan to have a quiet Christmas eve. 

"I will see what I can do. Now I think there are some files who are calling my name. See you both later." J'onn said taking his leave.

Kara narrowed her eyes at her after his departure. "What? Do I have something on my face?" she asked confused.

"Nope. I am thinking about what games would suit you. I might pick some on the way home."

"Okay." Alex replied. "Hey before I forget, we need to clear the paperwork for the robbery case by tonight. I have completed most of it. All it needs is your finishing touch."

"Uhh... I might drown in paperwork. You know when I first joined, I thought it would be more legwork and adventure. But nope, turns out it was only files. It's like going to an amusement park and then just standing in queue whole day without enjoying any rides."

"That... does not make sense, like at all." she shook her head trying to understand the analogy. "Get to work, we will talk in the evening anyway." 

  
Kara mock saluted her before marching away in a bizarre way. ' _How is this weirdo one of the strongest individuals on Earth?_ ' she thought to herself. Her appreciation of Kara's control had skyrocketed after the barn incident. The way he handled the creature, if someone did not know her, they would get the idea that she did this every now and then.   
Speaking of said creature, they were still waiting for any words from him. Since he had regained consciousness, he had remained docile but did not speak a single word. People at the desert base were still busy interrogating him. She hoped that they get something out of him soon.

The woman called Virtuous was still a mystery to all of them. Winn had been scouring every footage possible, yet they did not have a single sighting of her. Maybe she wore her mask only for meeting Kara because if it were to be seen somewhere in public, it would stick out like a sore thumb. She hated this part of any investigation, waiting for the other side to make a move first. The unpredictable always made her uncomfortable and this Virtuous seemed to be the queen of unpredictable. All they could do at the moment was prepare for all the possibilities and wait for the Agents of Liberty to make a mistake.

Remembering that she was just standing in the middle of hub like a lost person, she walked towards the labs to lock herself inside. Maybe some tinkering around would help her pass the time quickly. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 24th, 7:45 PM

If someone asked her how she was doing right now, Lena would definitely scream at them. She had less than 10 hours to make sure that her Christmas present to Kara was working fine. Well, it was working fine but there were still some bugs she needed to sort out. And having Nia hovering around her was not helpful at all. 

Kara was banished to the kitchen until she was done, and Nia hated cooking. So, instead of hanging around Kara like she usually did, she had decided to be her companion. It would have been no problem, if she didn't make her want to start cursing every 2 minutes. Nia was inquisitive by nature and right now Lena did not have enough spare time to sate her curiosity. Deciding that she might need to pull another all-nighter to complete this, she decided to scrap up her work for the moment. It was not like she was making much progress anyway. 

"Are we done?" Nia questioned.

"We are. I am not."

"So... is the work completed now?" 

"For us, yes. For me, no."

"Hey! Stop messing with me. I am just asking."

"And I am answering. It is not my fault that your questions are so easy that I can bend all my answers on whim. I pity those who you decide to interview. They never stand a chance." Lena spoke and went out of the room, leaving a flabbergasted Nia behind.

She still had a few preparations left for the guests. Alex, she had met and talked before, but Kara's boss on the other hand, she never had any interaction of any kind with him. 'Might prove to be interesting.' she thought before entering the kitchen, where Kara was busy cooking and singing. 

"Where are the things you bought? They might need some setup." she asked.

"First of all, they are games, not some "things". Second, they are near the Christmas tree. Third, I am pretty sure they don't need any setup." Kara replied. "It's just games Lee. They don't require setups unlike..." she took a dramatic pause, "Furnitures."

  
Lena snorted at this. Kara had a lot of trouble with assembling furniture, for Rao knows what reason. "You ar-" her remark was cut-off by the doorbell. Before either of them could move, Nia leaped out of nowhere to get the door. She was still adjusting to this circumstance. It had always been her and Kara since they had met years ago. So, sharing the same space with someone else was very weird for her. Nia wasn't the problem here at all. She always tried to help so that she does not become a burden. However, it would be a cold day in hell if she ever told her this. 

A few moments later, Alex walked in with confusion written all over her face. She beelined towards both of them, "Who is she? I can't deal with that level of energy this late in the day."

"Heh. Don't worry, I will introduce you." Kara told as Nia came skipping in. "Nia this is Dr. Alex Danvers, my friend at work. Alex this is Nia Nal. She is a reporter at CatCo."

"Umm... no offence, but why is she living here? She wasn't here last time I visited." Alex asked.

"My apartment is flooded. I needed a place to say and Kara offered." Nia spoke their usual excuse. Alex nodded at her before walking back to make herself comfortable in front of the TV.

"You can tell her if you want to. It's safe." Kara whispered to Nia. "I mean it's completely up to you but if it would help you decide, she already knows that I am Kryptonian."

Nia looked thoughtful for a few minutes. Suddenly, she dragged Lena into the conversation. "What do you think? I am confused. Shouldn't I not tell people about this?"

"As Kar said, it's up to you. If you go by logical choice, do not tell. You cannot trust anyone just because someone vouches for them. Emotionally, do share your story. It will help you process this better and this may pay dividends in the future."

"Huh... that does not help, like at all." Nia commented. "Can I not? At least not until I talk and get to know her."

"Absolutely. That is a pretty good idea actually. Come on now, either help me cook or get on mingling." Kara said dismissing both. They both walked back into the living room. Lena took her usual position on the couch and Nia sat in an adjacent chair to her. 

"Oh! I totally forgot. Here you go." Alex offered them a wrapped bottle. 

"Thanks." Lena accepted it graciously. "So, what has been going with you? Still fighting 10-foot monsters that you have no chance beating?"

"Nah. I cannot handle that much adventure. It is not good for heart and I love my heart very much thank you." Alex replied. 

They all fell into silence. It was not uncomfortable per se, but it was not a comforting silence either. So now they were stuck in a weird state where no one wanted to be the one to speak and everyone tried to look focused on the TV. These kinds of situations are where she usually takes a backseat and lets Kara shine. Her ability to start a full-fledged conversation with anyone is something of a miracle to Lena.

"Want to see the garden? I have made some changes to it." she awkwardly asked.

"Sure. It would be better than watching this piece of crap." Alex got up and they both walked towards the backyard. "So, what is your research about, in the university?" she further asked.

"Use of microbots and AI in cure and prevention of diseases which are currently considered to be incurable. It incorporates way too many fields and I will admit that I am not the best at biology stuff, so the progress has been a bit slow. However, I will take slow progress over no progress anyway, so you are going to hear no complaints from me. I just hope someday I can make it work." she explained slowly walking among the flowers.

She could see Kara laughing and singing through the window. She had not told anyone why she chose this as the subject of her research, but it could be guessed easily. Alex had gone quiet after her explanation. She looked at her with an emotion Lena couldn't place before speaking, "You are trying to cure her, aren't you?"

"Heh. Guess Kara is finally rubbing off on you. Good deduction." she laughed it off. "You cannot expect me to do nothing while she suffers. I made a promise to myself when we got engaged, and I will die before breaking it."

Alex nodded at her reply. Looking towards the clear night sky adorned with stars like jewels on a pretty dress, she spoke quietly, "It must be good to find someone in your life who gets you. A person in front of whom you do not have to pretend. It seems like such a small thing, yet people go throughout their lives without experiencing this feeling." 

"We have to agree to disagree on this. I do not think you magically "find" someone perfect for you. First time I met her; it was before... before Lex's madness. I remember, we both were so out of sync. None of our interest matched and we struggled to keep a single conversation going. And do not even get me started on our background differences.” 

“What I am trying to get to is, vulnerability takes time. You cannot expect to suddenly meet someone who makes you feel better and takes all your problems away. Life is not a princess story."

"How do you-" Alex looked thoughtful as if measuring her words. "How do you figure out if a person would make a good partner?" 

"You don't. It is a risk. Always." she was surprised as to why Alex Danvers of all people was asking her relationship advice. Surely there were other people who were better than her at this stuff. Before she could voice her question, her brain made a discovery. "Someone asked you out." She voiced her realization.

Alex looked her incredulously prior to laughing out loud. "Why am I surprised? Of course, you would figure it out, Miss 'professor at the age of 25'." she regulated her breathing before continuing.

"Umm... yeah. I kind of did get asked out. But I turned them down. I don't even know why. I guess I was scared. I do not want someone to see what a mess I am. There has been a lot of second guessing regarding the decision."

"Hmm. I know the feeling. You don't think you are good enough for someone else and want to better yourself first." Seeing Alex nod, she continued. "However, you are overlooking one major aspect. In the words of the dork cooking inside, "Who are you to decide if you are good enough for me? That verdict belongs to me alone." This is not about you only. You have to consider the other's feelings as well. If you have some genuine troubles, then sure take your time to better yourself before dating. But if not, then in my opinion you should at least give the person a chance. Maybe it will work, maybe it will not, but you would never look back later and think of 'what if' scenarios because you will have a definite answer."

Alex absorbed her words. She looked lost in her thoughts. After a few minutes of silence, she spoke, "Thank you. You have given me a lot to think about. You are good at explaining stuff."

"I hope so otherwise I am failing so many students of mine." she joked and was exuberant to know that it landed. Alex chuckled looking at the stars again. Talking about college, she suddenly got an idea in her mind, "Hey Alex, you interested in learning some biology?"

"Hmm?" she asked confused by sudden change in topic.

"I was hoping you could overlook some of Kara's medical files. I have tried over and over again to find something useful in them, but it never really worked out. Maybe you would have a better chance, I mean new perspective has never hurt anyone."

"Sure. I can’t promise anything, but I can try." 

"Okay then. I will send some things in a few days." she told her. "We should probably head inside. It’s nice beneath the stars and all but this is really not a stay-out weather."

"Yeah... you are right on that one." Alex agreed before following her back inside.

As soon as she stepped inside, she was met Kara's lips on her own. Now she could never complain about kissing Kara. It was always one of the best things she could do at any moment, but this time she was a bit surprised by the sudden surge of affection. Pulling back gently after she was as out of breath, she ruffled Kara's hair affectionately, "What happened?"

"Hmm. Nothing. Just following a tradition. Look up." Kara spoke softly.

She looked up to find mistletoe hanging just above the door. It was not there when she went out, and no one needed to guess who placed it. Deciding to tease her, she said, "Oh really. And here I thought it was because you just wanted to kiss me. Guess I am not attractive enough anymore."

"What?" Kara squeaked. "How- Why would you think that? You are like the most beautiful person I have ever met, and I have been to 13 pla- Ohh... I get it. Trying to tease me, are we?"

"Hmm. Keep going. What about 13 planets?" 

"Nope. That's all you get for teasing me." she pouted a bit.

Lena responded by kissing her again. "What about now?" she said to a tomato red Kara.

"Still nope, it costs 3 kisses you know."

"Dork. I have a serious question though, what if Alex walked in first?"

"Umm..." Kara cleared her throat thinking of something to say. "No comments. And even if she walked in first, she would have had to ask her mysterious person, which probably would have helped her case."

"You were listening?"

"A tiney winey bit. I was interested in what you were talking about. It's not like you two are friendly with each other." she defended herself.

  
Their private moment was interrupted by Nia who sneaked to stand right beside them. "Hey lovebirds. I hate to interrupt but there is some old dude at the door. Most probably your boss if I am not wrong. Want me to invite him in?"

Lena levelled her with a death glare and Nia promptly backed away. Kara laughed whole-heartedly before stepping away from her embrace. "I am going to let him in."

She opened the door to a smiling J'onn. "Good evening Kara." he said giving her a wrapped box and stepping in. "Is Alex here?"

"Yup. She is in the living room."

"May I have a couple of moments with you two? It’s important otherwise I would not bring it up tonight." he spoke.

"Sure. Umm... Lee and Nia can you give us a moment."

Lena looked at her puzzled by the sudden shift in atmosphere. "Work?" she asked. 

"Yeah, sorry. Just few minutes, I promise." she replied.

"No problem darling." she headed into the adjacent room dragging Nia behind her.

"What is it sir?" Alex questioned.

"There has been a couple of interesting incidents since the afternoon. First, we finally got the drug results back on our friendly monster. Your initial prognosis was right Alex. There was unhealthy amount of all sorts of unknown and lethal chemicals in him. Someone is trying to create enhanced strength drugs. And considering what Kara has told about Lord Industries, I believe it might be time to look into their R & D."

"The more pressing matter however is the massacre happened in a warehouse near the docks about an hour ago. Some gang members were obliterated by a woman in the exact same mask as Kara described."

"You guys talking about this?" Lena suddenly spoke walking in. 

"Lee wh-"

Her question was answered as soon as the TV was switched to a news channel. They were reporting the same thing. It was being dubbed as "The Warehouse Slaughter."  
"We have a few of our reporters live on the scene but the area has been completely blocked off. The police have confirmed the death of 11 individuals but these numbers are supposed to go much higher. The sources are describing it as a bloodbath. Keep in mind, we are still awaiting the release of an official statement. Is this the result of a gang war gone wrong, or some other nefarious plan is in play here? Keep watching to find out." the anchor spoke.

"What the hell?" Alex whispered. 

"We can't do much here Alex. This is why I told this after the findings of the drug. There is no proof that this was done by a powered individual, thus making this case out of our jurisdiction. And we already have our job cut out for us." J'onn stated.

"How did you know it was Virtuous?" Kara queried.

"I was able to pull some strings and get a picture from the CCTV across the warehouse. Unfortunately for us, all the cameras in the areas were shut down right after this was taken. Thus, no eligible proof that she did this." he explained before turning his attention to Lena. "I hope that this information will be kept confidential, Miss...?"

"Lena. Kara's wife. And yeah, I have no intention of ever leaking this. You should worry more about the little journalist sitting over there." she looked up from her phone to answer. Everyone looked at Nia immediately who shrank under their gaze.

"Relax. I am off duty. Plus, I did not even understand what you all were saying." she spoke up in a high-pitched voice. Considering her for some time, they finally reverted their attention back towards Lena.

"It's good to finally put a face to your name, Miss Luthor" J'onn smiled warmly at her. Lena froze for a moment before nodding at him. Kara noticed his eyes flashing red for a brief period of time but thinking that it was just light playing tricks on her, she paid no particular attention to it.

"What's our next step sir?"

"We need to check out Lord Industries as quickly as possible. I will also look into getting you on the scene for any clues, but don't expect too much there as they are planning to keep the investigation under wraps. How quick do you reckon Winn could get into one of Lord's computers?"

"You can't. At least not in your given time frame." Lena replied. "All the desktops there are on a private network. You need a physical connection with one of their CPU's to force enter, otherwise it would take years to tear down their firewalls."

This time everyone except Kara turned their attention on Lena. "May I ask how you know this?" J'onn enquired.

"I designed the whole thing for L-Corp and Lord Industries copied it. There is no remote access possible. This was years ago; they would have probably upgraded it more."

"What about the party?" Kara spoke abruptly.

"Umm... can't it wait? I know you were excit-" Alex was cut off by her.

"Not this one." she exasperated. "I was talking about the big party Lord throws on 31st December every year. It is a huge event, and we can easily blend in. Plus, we might even get a crack at the Maxwell Lord himself."

"That makes more sense." Alex mumbled. 

"Hmm. It could work. Get a team ready then." J'onn told.

"Affirmative. Would get on it tomorrow first thing."

J'onn nodded before sitting down and relaxing for the first time since he had stepped in the house. "I am so sorry for ruining the festivities. It was not my intention to barge in and wreck the nice atmosphere." he sighed deeply. "This is a very nice Christmas tree." he pointed to a 5ft tall tree adorned with lights standing in the corner of the room.

"Thank you. Will you be staying for dinner then?" Kara questioned.

"If you insist. But I cannot stay for long though."

The dinner was a nice affair in Kara's book. The conversation flowed smoothly, and no one looked uncomfortable. J'onn took his leave sometime after eating. Kara's brain compared J'onn's arrival to that of a whirlwind; it completely disrupted them before leaving on a quieter note. She was proud of her mind for pulling out that analogy. Alex however was stopped by her when she tried to leave. "Come on. We have not even played the games yet."

This was how she found all four of them sitting around the table playing monopoly. To say Lena absolutely destroyed all of them would be the understatement of the day. Alex finished second but there was no competition. "Okay. This is stupid. She almost ran a company. Of course, she is good at this." Nia complained after.

"Thank you. This is true in your case too. No doubt you are a brilliant interviewer just because you can hold yourself well in social conversations." Lena sassed back.

Nia looked at her bewildered as if trying to figure something out. "Why do you always do this? I can never tell if you are genuinely complimenting me or just making fun of me. Forget that, I can't even understand what I am supposed to response." she turned to Kara. "Was she as bad as this with you too?" 

Kara chuckled lightly. "I would avoid answering to not crush your spirits." 

"Okay, I see how this is. We are playing Pictionary next. I will have my revenge and win." she declared boldly.

Sadly, for Nia and Alex, they did not even come close to Kara and Lena. "I will say, this one is rigged. You can't expect them to go up against you darling." Lena commented on her sketching skills.

"Damn... since when can you draw?" Alex asked.

"Always. The paintings hanging around the house are all done by me." she replied sincerely. 

Alex whistled and looked at the time. Seeing 11:30 PM surprised her. She did not know where the time had flown. Deciding to end her night then, she slowly got up. "Thanks for tonight. I should leave now. We need to start early tomorrow."

"Sure." Kara got up too and hugged her. She went outside with Alex to bid her goodbye. Stepping back in, she was surprised to see Lena holding up a small, wrapped package. "What is happening?" she asked curiously.

"I was going to give you this tomorrow, but since you would be working the full day, I decided to prepone the gift giving. Mind you, it's not finished yet." Lena mentioned before passing her the package.  
She quickly opened the wrapping to find a small box with spectacles inside. "Okay. You sure this is for me?"

"Just wear it." 

Kara did the exact thing. As soon as she wore it, a smooth female voice spoke up, "Confirming identification. Retinal scan in progress. Kindly do not take off the device." It paused for a minute. "Identity confirmed. Initializing the default setting. Good night ma’am, how may I be of service?"

"Huh?"

There was another pause. "I am sorry to say that I am not advanced enough yet to respond adequately to the various one syllable voices. Should I check the internet for appropriate responses?"

"No... wha- who are you?"

"I am Hope. The user interface system designed by Mrs. Lena Zorel. My primary function is aiding you and your wife in any way possible."

It took Kara's mind a moment to register it. "Holy Rao! You gave her a voice! Yesss!" she exclaimed dancing around. "Best Christmas gift ever!"

Lena smiled seeing Kara. It had been a while since she was this excited for something. "Hey! Before you go playing with her, let me tell some precautions first." Kara stepped down from the couch to listen to her. "Okay. The specs serve as her primary device for now. She works in our phones and other electronic devices as well, but you will not be able to access all her functions. So, it goes without saying, don't lose them. Sure, it would be ordinary for anyone else other than us, but that thing takes time to build." 

"Got it." Kara said before hugging her tightly. "Thank you so much." Kara had been working on AI interface since her teenage years in an effort to reconstruct Kelex for daily use but could never figure out how to go about doing so. She wanted it as a piece of reminder of Krypton's advanced technology, of how she used to talk to her AI for days without getting tired.   
She still remembers the day when she asked for Lena's help on the matter early on in their friendship, and how she promised that she would make one sooner or later for her. Sure, Hope was not as progressive as the AI's on Kryton, but she loved her, nonetheless. 

"Now if I could just figure out your sun problem." Lena's voice brought her back from her thoughts. 

"You will. Sooner or later you definitely will. Don't worry about it too much." 

A few years ago, someone had asked her what her perfect Christmas was. She did not give an answer then, but today came pretty close to her definition of perfect. She did not follow any human religion, but she loved the spirit during the festivals. Despite the horrible news earlier in the evening, she was able to spend Christmas Eve with some of her favourite people, this alone made it one of the best Christmas for her. And in the end, this is what the holidays mean, right? 

  
  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed it.  
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.  
> Thank you and Stay Safe.


	8. A Happy New Year?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year to everyone. Let's hope it is better than 2020 at least.  
> Here's a 7k words chapter in celebration of new year.

CHAPTER 8: And a happy new year?

December 31st, 6 PM

  
"Everyone should remain on guard throughout the night. This is an infiltration mission with limited information, not an assault which means there is a lot of chances that our initial plans may not work. So, we must avoid panicking and adapt according to the conditions. Keep a level head and we will do just fine. Any questions?"

Kara was addressing the team she handpicked for Maxwell Lord's gala. It included her, Alex, Susan, Winn and two new recruits, William, and Corey. Lena was a part of the plan too, but they did not need to know her role and frankly she did not need this talk at all. Of all the team members, Lena might be the best at her given job, and she was including herself in the list. 

"Umm...." Vasquez cleared her throat. "I have a question. Why do we need to look for R&D specifically? Shouldn't one of the low-level employee's computer work just as fine?"

"Nope." Winn answered for her. "There is a high chance that a normal employee's computer would be on a whole different network. If you ran a company which did unethical work, the last thing you would want to do is give your employees access to every single information."

"Any other queries?" Kara asked.

Her question was met by silence. ' _The new guys do not look much confident._ ' The voices spoke. "Is everything all right?"

William, one of the guys who had recently joined the DEO spoke up. "It's just... Ma'am if Lord is working with Agents of Liberty, is there a chance that the powered individual will be lurking around somewhere?"

' _Valid question Kara_.' a cheery voice pitched in.

"This is what I meant by limited information. We do not know who is going to be there. Remember, worrying about what may or may not be is the first step of ensuring failure. We need to focus on our job." Seeing that they did not look much convinced, she continued, "Look, if she is there by any chance, just fall back and let me do my stuff. I have a surprise if they try to show up."

She in fact did not have a surprise of any kind up her sleeve. It was just to boost the morale up a little bit. Usually she hates lying but sometimes lies can do wonders too. 

"Okay... Winn remind everyone the shot callers in case of emergency." she asked him.

"You, Alex, Vasquez and then me, in that respective order." he replied.

"Perfect. Get to the rendezvous point at 8'o clock on the dot. We got this. Everyone dismissed." 

' _You know we don't ‘got’ this. That's what you told them last time too._ ' the voices were back. And they were not completely wrong per se, she had a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach about something going very very wrong. Why, she had no clue. It was just there persistently pestering her.

  
"What's wrong?" Alex bumped her shoulder. 

"Hmm... Nothing, nothing at all. Just pre-mission jitters I guess." she said. "Just... this is my first mission since..... so yeah. Not at my best. But don't worry, I will get there. Promise."

Alex made a sympathetic face. "If there is any issue, feel free to ask for help. I know this cannot be as easy as you are making it look."

"Nah. It's cool. See you later." she excused herself and went straight to her home to finish her final preparations. As much she loved talking, she did not want to relive one of her worst experiences right before a vital mission. Focusing was something she struggled doing normally, she really did not need the extra stress on top of it. 

Parking her car, she swiftly moved inside her home. Nia was perched on the couch while Lena was sitting on the chair, working away on her laptop. "We ready here?" she asked beelining towards Lena.

"Pretty much. I have double checked the program Winn gave; it should work pretty much as soon as you connect with any computer. Say whatever you want to about him, you cannot deny that he is great at his stuff." Lena replied while Kara sat beside her. 

"Here is your fake CatCo ID, Ms. Emma Starr, junior correspondent. I hope you make good use of it, and my boss does not find out anything about it because this seems like a pretty solid way of getting fired." Nia offered.

"Thank you. And don't worry, I will stay away from the "real" CatCo representatives." she thanked Nia. "Get ready Lee, we need to leave soon." 

"On it." 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

31st December, 7:55 PM

Alex was going to murder whoever had picked this small van as their mobile HQ. They were struggling to fit in, and Kara and Lena had not even arrived yet. It was so crammed that she was sweating as if it was summer. "Nope, I cannot sit in this. I am going out for fresh air." she justified her exit.

The first thing she did after stepping out was take a deep breath. She never thought she was going to miss how good fresh air could feel, but somehow, she had achieved it. Looking around, she saw Kara and Lena standing near the van. It looked like they were talking quietly to each other. Confused about whether she wanted to make her presence known or keep acting like she had not noticed them, her brain somehow decided to remain rooted to the spot. After a few hushed whispers, both walked slowly towards the van. 

"Hey Alex. Everyone here?" Kara asked noticing her.

"Yeah. They are inside." She replied. "Was this stupid small van your idea? Because I have a bone to pick with you if it was."

"It was Winn." she defended. "I only asked him to pick something from where he could easily work out off."

As they came closer, she noticed two very different clothing styles. Kara was looking prim and proper reporter with her spectacles and formal wear whereas Lena was... sultry, to be mild and PG, in her black dress.

"What are you staring at? Is something wrong with how I am dressed?" Lena narrowed her eyes at her. She rounded at Kara next, "I told you I should have worn the green one. Matches my eye."

"No no no. I have never seen you in anything except shirts and jeans, so I was a little surprised, that's all. You look fine." she quickly replied. 

"Yeah Lee. You look drop dead gorgeous. In fact, I would have dropped dead right now if we did not have work to do." Kara remarked. 

"Speaking of work, want to step inside? It might take a hot minute to adjust all of us in there." 

True to her words, it took them 5 minutes to make sure everyone had sufficient space. In the end, Winn ended up sitting on the ground with everyone getting a small seat. Lena had the biggest seat so that her dress does not get ruined while others were practically on top of each other.  
"What a great start." Lena commented. "This might be the most scuffed base of operations of all time. I am getting the success vibes just by sitting here."

"Rude." Winn stated. "And why are we all whining about the space anyway? You all will be gone outside in a minute anyway. I got it by the mindset that only I have to work from here."

"Let's get this over with." Vasquez said softly. "The quicker we get out the better."

Kara cleared her throat before beginning. "Okay. So, everyone knows their part and callsigns. Stick to your plans. Do what you have to do and get out. Always keep the comms on. In case of any trouble contact the team. Try not to get caught, it would just increase my work. I will repeat everyone's task to make sure you know what we are doing. Susan, you are up first. Blend in with the waiters and get to rendezvous point A as quickly as possible. Will and Corey, you guys will act as Lena's bodyguard so don't mind too much if she is mean to you."

"Hey!" Lena's voice interrupted her, but she quickly stopped her retort seeing everyone's attention on her.

"In case of emergency, I need both of you to make sure that no civilian is harmed in the crossfire. Alex you are entering with Susan before meeting up with me at rendezvous point A. Lee you do what you are best at. Winn you are our eyes, try not to lead us into danger. I am going in as a CatCo reporter and will meet up with Alex and Vas at point A. Any last questions regarding your job?"

"How is she getting us in? We don't have invitation." Corey pointed at Lena.

"I don't need one." Lena gave a deadly smirk. "Don't worry about any of that. They are going to roll out the red carpet for me."

Kara sighed. "You are enjoying this too much Lee. Do not get into unnecessary trouble. All right don't forget your stuff, we are going to need that. We start on 3 if no other questions. 1... 2... 3. Let's do this."

They all tried to get out of the van at once which resulted in everyone bumping into each other and no one actually getting out. "All right. We are going to have a talk later Winn. Stupid fucking van. Never thought a vehicle would make me curse." Alex threatened before finding her way out. 

Everyone dispersed to progress to their assigned positions. Kara and Lena shared a brief hug before separating their ways. It was almost showtime and she was feeling a bit nervous. ' _Time to put all the training to use Alex, you got this_.' she hyped herself putting on her comms. She was stopped by someone poking her shoulder. Turning around, she saw Kara looking at her intensely. "What happened?" 

"I... If something goes wrong... you run. Do not try to be a hero. Doesn't matter what situation I am in. If I say to get out, get out."   
"Okay... I just wanna ask, where is this coming from? Do you think something wrong is going to happen?"

  
"Be ready for anything." Kara replied cryptically before moving away.

"Hmm. What's up with her today?" Vasquez popped out of nowhere. "She is usually much cheerier."

"Who knows? Her brain just works on a different dimension than us. Let us just focus on our part." she replied.

"I hope our guy was able to stash our gears without much trouble. I swear Winn has most weird dudes as his lackeys." Vasquez commented. 

Both changed into waitresses’ outfit and entered the caterer's area. The gala was being organized in a huge ground which included the National City headquarters of Lord Industries itself. The building was in the center with decorations all around it for the party. They quickly entered the temporary kitchen set up near the back and tried to blend in. 

A stressed-out middle-aged woman noticed them wandering around and hastily called them over. "What are you two doing? Guests have arrived and instead of serving, you are frolicking around. Get back to work. If I saw you too relaxing again, I swear you both would be fired faster than you can say sorry." she rambled in their faces.

"Of course, ma'am. So sorry. It won't happen again." Vasquez quickly took the nearby tray and shoved it into Alex's hand. "We will get right on that. Just do not fire us. We really really need the money." she quickly picked up another tray and directed both towards the gala. 

"Don't let her see us again. I doubt she will remember us, but we should play it risk free." Vasquez told her. "Oh look, there is Kara."

And sure enough, Kara was standing a good 20 meters away with a small writing pad and pen in her hand. She blended in so much that Alex had to do a double take to ensure that it was her only.  
"Stop staring at me and do something." Kara scolded them through their earpieces. "Alpha one to Bravo, you are good to go."

"Copy." Lena reported back before telling William and Corey to follow her. "Just look intimidating, I will handle the rest."

She sauntered to the main entry where a few people were waiting in a queue. She crossed everyone and went straight inside. As planned, she was stopped by a guard, "Please get in line ma'am."

"Do you know who you are talking to?" she said with authority. The guard remain stoic faced as usual.

"I am sorry ma'am, but we have to follow the rules. Please get back."

She sighed. "Listen here, I do not want to create a scene right now. So, I suggest you let me pass right now, otherwise we are going to have a very different conversation in a little while about your pathetic "rules"." she declared stepping into his space.

"Still a no ma'am. Don't let us call additional security." he lightly pushed her away.

And that was exactly what she was waiting for. She quickly tumbled behind before falling on the ground. She hastily gathered tears in her eyes, "My dress is all ruined. What am I supposed to do now?"

A small crowd had gathered around them. Seeing her on the ground, a few people stepped forward. "What is happening here?" One person asked.

"I-I just wanted to get in the ga-gala. Th-This man here stopped me f-for no purpose. Then h-her stepped into my space and when I t-told him to ba-back off, he pus-pushed me on the ground. W-What kind of people are employed here?" she cried.

For the first time, she could see nervousness on the guard's face. "Tha-that's not what happened."

"He is still lying." she shouted. "Why was I treated in such way? What harm will I cause? I just wanted to have a good time."

A few people helped her stand back on the ground. Some of the rest got up in the guard's face, "Listen here, you are going to apologize to her and then let her go in without any further delay. This is no way of treating a woman."

"O-okay. I... am sorry. You can go in." He said giving in. "I don't want to deal with her anyway."

"Tha-thanks all of you." she thanked the nearby people. "Bodyguards, do your job and escort me inside. I need to clean up. Whole dress ruined."

They made their way inside and she could hear the guard swearing at her under his breath. She confirmed their entry on the comms. "We are in."

"Good job." Kara commented. 

Alex was stuck speechless for a moment. Lena was making them look amateur in comparison. What even was that? She shook her head and started making her to the building.  
"Overwatch, which entry point?" she asked on the comms. 

"Take the second one. A couple of people near the first. Tell me when you are in, I can navigate you from there."

"Copy."

She reached the designated spot and looked around for any kind of trouble. There were three people roaming around. She silently moved forward but as soon as she thought she was in the clear, someone spoke behind her.

"You there, what are you doing?"  
She thought of making a run for it but that would make things much worse for everyone else. Thinking of some lie to get out of this murky situation, she slowly turned around. The face looking back at her shocked her. "Maggie?"

"Danvers? What are you doing snooping around here?" Maggie replied equally befuddled.

"I can ask you the same. What are even doing in Lord's party?" she asked turning off her comms. 

"My job. I am here as security detail for the VIP's." she looked around. "We should continue this in the building before we get caught. Get in."

They sneaked in together before Maggie rounded on her. "Why here? I assume sunshine might be lurking around somewhere too."

She sighed. "Case related stuff Sawyer, I can't tell anything right now."

Maggie nodded. "We will talk later then. One word of advice for future stealth, just walk. You moving slowly and steadily would make people more suspicious of you." she said with a dimpled smile.

There went the butterflies in her stomach again. Alex had not forgotten what Lena had told her, but this was not the time to do anything about it. "Are you free in upcoming days? I would like to talk about somethings." she asked nervously.

"Sure. I told you before I am not a busy person like you. Just call whenever you wanna talk." she paused. "I will be around if you guys need help tonight." she said before returning to wherever she was stationed for the night.

Alex watched her go for a while before turning on her comms again. "You all right?" Kara's voice reverberated in her ears.

"Yeah. Just ran into someone. It is all fine. Moving to position now." 

"Copy. I will be there soon."

She made her way into the women's restroom on the ground floor, where their contact had hidden their gears. Making sure that it was empty, she went into the left corner and pulled off the fake wall. There was a black bag inside. She pulled it out to find field gears. She took her tactical uniform and wore it before picking up her guns. They had decided to use non-lethal rounds, on Kara's request. According to her, the guards are just doing their jobs and hurting them is not something they should. She agreed with her.

"Lock and loaded. Waiting for Alpha One." she reaffirmed her status.

Less than a minute later, Kara opened the door to enter. She was not alone though. She dragged a man's body along with her. "He was in the way. I thought that it would look much less suspicious to find an unconscious man in toilets than in an open space." she defended herself.

Without saying anything, she helped her put the man in a stall. Kara had declined the offer to wear the armor in the planning stage. She later confessed to her that this was because it restricted her movements if she used her powers. 

"Alpha One to Charlie, you can move in. We have secured point A." Kara spoke in her earpiece. ' _This is too easy. Shouldn't Lord have more staff in here._ ' A voice spoke and she agreed. This was going way too much according to plan. 

A few minutes later, Vasquez arrived and equipped her gear. When they were about to move, Lena said, "I have eyes on Maxwell Lord."

"Do your magic." Kara encouraged her.

The three of them slowly moved towards the elevator, or in this case, elevators. "Which one Overwatch?" Alex questioned.

"I have controls of the third one. It would go up to the 20th floor, you will have to change it afterwards. R&D is on the 28th."

"Copy. Go on, I will meet you there then." Kara said ushering both of them inside and moving towards the stairs herself. 

"How are you going to climb 20 floors ma'am?" Vasquez asked skeptically looking at her legs. Kara only smiled before moving away from the closing elevator doors. She never said she was going to climb any step. "Hope?"

"Yes boss." the AI replied in a cheerful voice.

"Start the watch please." she ordered before lifting herself a bit off the ground. If anyone saw her without giving much attention, it would seem like she was just walking. "Okay. 20 floors. Let's do this."

As she was floating above each stair slowly, she heard Lena hustling around. ' _Probably setting up her position._ ' she thought. And true to her thoughts, a few moments later, she heard Maxwell lord say, "Is that you, Ms. Luthor? How did you find yourself in my humble gala? Without invitation I might add."

"Maxwell Lord, the man of the hour. You know I would be surprised to run into you, but it is your party, so I can only blame myself." Lena replied.

"I would like to say it is a pleasure to meet you but we both know it would be a lie, especially after what you did to me. So, I would ask again, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be celebrating new year with the idiot who decided to marry you?"

"We all need changes in life. She is all cool and everything, but you get bored after a while. You do not know how tiring it is to listen to someone ramble about their bad luck and broken leg every fucking day. I get it, you are struggling. Why are you wasting my time then? Uh.. I couldn't bear to listen to her bitching on New Year’s Eve too."

Kara could picture Lena's internal struggle in uttering these words. She felt bad for making her do this. "Even if there was trouble in paradise, I am pretty sure that you would not come to my doorstep. So, cut right to the chase. I have other matters to attend to." Lord continued clearly annoyed by her presence.

"Really Lord? You want to do this in front of everyone. We both know how last time went for you."

"Listen smartass, you better tell me what the meaning of this is or I will have you thrown out right now. Don't forget, you have nothing right now. No money, no power, and by the looks of it not even a decent life. On the other hand, I will soon have everything a man can dream of."

"Hmm. How does that monster drug factor in your vast schemes?" Lena went right for the kill.

"Wh-What? I have no idea what you are talking about."

"That stutter says otherwise. Anyway, you don't have to worry, I was just fascinated by it that's all. It has been a hot minute since anyone has created something that has... piqued my interest in such a way."

"How do you know anything about this? This was not even in the news." he whispered.

"I know everything Lord. After all these years, you should know, money doesn't mean shit to me. Just because I changed myself on the surface does not mean that the Luthor genes went away. And you know what, you should be thankful for that because the cold, heartless monster that I was back then would have a much different conversation here." 

"What do you want?" Lord asked after a minute's silence.

"I was going through my idiot wife's files and saw a few interesting things. It does not exactly take a genius to know that not a lot of people can synthesize the stable form of that drug. And as much as it pains me to say this, you have a knack for this stuff. Seeing this and all the alien attacks, I just wanted to ask, did Lex put you up to this?"

This question was met by a rambunctious laugh from Lord. "Luthors. When will you understand that the world stopped revolving around you the day Superman decided to wipe the floor with Lex? You all took me for a fool then. We could have worked together and achieved so much. But your brother had to go play god? Well guess what, now I control everything and there is nothing in this world that can stop me." he spat.

"Umm... I don't know. I think I know someone. Name starts with 'S'. Can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes. I believe you know him too, pretty famous guy. His name was just on tip of my tongue."

"Superman is old news. I don't know what he is proud of when he is not even the strongest kryptonian. Wh-"

' _There, he slipped up there._ ', Kara's voices screamed at her. "Good work Bravo One. Disengage, I repeat disengage now."

"Are you sure? He has not said anything incriminating yet. We will have no evidence he is involved in anything." Alex raised her concern.

"Of course, he would not say anything. He knows he is being recorded. I will explain to you later."

"You know what Lord, I just wanted to know what Lex is up to. I did not come her for your villainous monologue. Go bore some ass-kisser with your fantasy and let me enjoy the party. It's been a while since I have been to one." Lena said.

"Enjoy everything while it lasts Luthor. You know what, check tomorrow's news while you are at it. Should tell you how much you messed up by not siding with me."

"Oh, I will. You do not need to worry for that part." she declared before walking away. "I am in the clear."

"Good work." Kara commented. 

She reached the 27th floor before stopping the usage of her powers. "How much cell decay Hope?"

"Difficult to calculate exactly so quickly ma'am. But by my rough estimation, it's about 0.01%. Flying causes the least stress on your body when compared to other powers."

She nodded to herself before climbing the stairs to the 28th. Alex and Vasquez were waiting for her on the stairwell with frowns on their faces. _'Who kicked their puppy?'_ a voice commented.   
"What happened to you two?"

"Nothing. Just wondering how much of the interaction you heard between Lord and you know..." Alex replied slowly.

"Huh? Full. What is wrong? Did I miss something?"

"No... nothing."

"Okay then." she pointed to Vas. "Stay here and cover our backs. Overwatch, show us the way."

"Third door on the hallway. It is the office of co-director of the R&D team. It should work just fine for our purpose."

They slowly tip-toed their way across the hallway, looking for any signs of troubles. Both of them stayed put in a shadowy corner, making sure that no one was on the floor. "It really did not bother you?" Alex whispered.

"What doesn't bother me? If you are talking about the voices, they are screaming at me right now. I am just keeping them in undernote of my mind."

"No." she turned off her comms. "The way she talked about you in front of Lord."

It took Kara a minute to figure out what she was talking about. Honestly, it was the last thing in her mind at that moment. "Ohh. It was all an act. In case you did not know, she is a great liar. Probably the best I have ever met. Don't bother about what she said."

"That is the problem. She is such a great liar that she might lie to our faces and we would not know anything about it. Makes you wonder if she is telling you the truth or just acting."

"Oh yeah, sure. The person who I had to convince to say all that stuff myself, who I trust more than anyone in this world, is a liar because she did something, she is good at. Absolutely perfect." she snapped.

In all her time with her, Alex had never seen her remotely close to anger. She was not angry yet too, but she seemed frustrated, as if this question had been asked to her innumerable times already. She took a deep breath to calm herself. "Sorry for the outburst. Just... don't be like others please. She had to suffer with the same type of thinking for years. Let's... just get this over with."

She left Alex and opened the third door in the hallway. "Umm... Overwatch, you sure this is empty?"

"Yeah, I have camera feed on right now. Perfectly clear."

Alex joined her a second later and like her she was surprised at the scene before them. The room before their eyes seemed like a set of a horror movie and it felt as if something were about to jump them. There were people on the desks. Each and every desk was occupied, but they were not working. In fact, they were doing nothing at all. All of them seemed to be unconscious. Alex moved near a woman to check on her while Kara shook herself out of the daze and started working on the computer.

"Al, get out. Go to Alpha three and wait for me. Something is very wrong here and all these people seem human. You might get affected too. I will do the stuff and join you a bit later." she did not like this, at all. The atmosphere was making the hair on her arms stand up and it was not in a good way. "Overwatch, check what you are looking at. Your information is not meeting the sights here."

She could hear Winn typing something frantically while Alex moved out. "Hope how long would this program take?"

"One and a half minutes to boot-up and another to download. You can plug the drive in any of the slots." she did exactly as told.

"Boot up in progress, will remind you on completion."

"Give me an analysis of the room please. X-ray and stuff, everything you can."

"On it."

She looked around the room. The creepiness seemed to increase by each passing second. Her observations were cut short by Winn's urgent voice, "Get ou- Arm- en."

"You are cutting off. Please repeat."

"Ge- OU-" his voice cut-off completely.

' _Not good, not good at all._ ' the voices inside her head were going crazy. ' _This is going the same as last time._ '

"Shut up and let me think." she shouted out loud. 

"But I did not even say anything. You are being rude." a childish voice spoke behind her. She slowly turned around to see Virtuous's smiling mask looking at her. "You are a bit early here. I tried to finish the preparations for your arrival but couldn't. I really tried..."

Kara did not respond to her. She needed to know what was really happening and for that she needed to use her super hearing. So, she quietly whispered, "Hope, start the watch". She was so quiet that she was not sure Hope actually picked it up. However, the AI understood the importance of the moment and instead of saying her usual confirmation, her specs simply blinked one time to let her know that it was on.

As expected by her, Virtuous was just wasting her time. There was a group of people moving quickly towards the gala and it seemed they had several of the earlier monster with them. She really wanted to just get out and do something about them, but they needed the files first. 

"Why are you not saying anything? Are you mad at me?" Virtuous asked with so much innocence as if she were a 5-year-old asking their parents what they did wrong.

"You remember my warning right. The one I gave you last time we met."

"Umm... lemme remember." she put a finger under her chin. "Oh yeah... you will arrest me whenever you saw me again. Kind of a lame warning to be honest. That's like my daily dose of threats. You should come up with something creative, something that screams YOU."

She looked at her watch. ‘One more minute.’

"Why Lord? Surely there are better people to collaborate with if you want world domination. Why go with the sleazy businessman? He seems like the biggest jerk."

"I know right. He did not even believe when we told him that you would be coming here tonight. "They won't risk it", he said. He forgets that he is not the smartest anymore. You guys have yourself and we have... someone equally smart. The reason I must stick with him is because I owe him, and I don't go back on my words. However, the day he runs out of usefulness, I will put him six feet under myself." Kara could feel her smirking through the mask.

"So, he is just a means to the end?"

"What? I don't know what that means. Use simpler words." she wailed.

"Forget it. You said you were waiting for me, why?"

' _The process is complete._ ' her watch flashed for her while Virtuous was busy.

  
"Why so many questions? Can't you just enjoy what I have been trying to do for you here? Everything will be revealed on time."

"Yeah.... I am going to go now. So, your plans will have to wait for some other time. Really sorry."

"NO! You are not going anywhere." Virtuous shrieked. 

"Why? Ohh... you need me here because you need time for your little merry gang to do stuff downstairs. Sorry to say, it ain't gonna happen tonight. I have other ideas." this time she was the one smirking.

"Bu- You couldn't have possibly downloaded the files. She said you needed at least 20 minutes."

"Plans change. And you are thinking too small. What will I get from downloading the R&D files? I already know you guys have deleted anything incriminating from the systems. In fact, you deleted it right after Nia got her information. So, whoever told you that I came here for files are scamming you."

"Why did you come here then? To annoy me. Does your team know you lied to them?"

Kara laughed heartily at this. "As much a good idea it is, nope. I have better stuff to do than annoy dimwits like you. And regarding the team, I compartmentalized the information. They don't need to know anything not important for them. What did you say to me last time? "We are not in the same game." Well guess what, I am in the same game. You all are just not in my league. Now, I really enjoyed our talk, but I really need to get going." she waved goodbye and turned towards the exit. 

"NO!" Virtuous shouted and quickly sped to intercept her. Already using her powers, Kara saw this coming from miles away and she easily side-stepped her attack and punched her in the back. The momentum carried her forward and she went straight into the wall. However, before Kara could follow up, Virtuous got up and hit her right in the face. 

She tumbled backwards and was met with a kick in her chest. The force sent her flying back into the office desks. ' _Blunt force won't work. She is much stronger than me and I really don't want to push it into second stage._ ' she thought before getting up. She picked her spectacles which fell a bit away and put them in her pocket.

  
She blocked the next punch flying at her, but the force behind Virtuous's punch was so immense that she hurt her hand instead. The punch was followed by a number of jabs and kicks. Virtuous's speed and strength were making it really difficult for her to counterattack. Knowing that she was outclassed, she sped away from her range of attacks.

"Talk to me Hope."

"Cell decay at 1%. The wall above the third pillar has weak structural integrity. Try to bait her towards it."

She quickly formulated a plan and lead Virtuous towards the column. Her opponent was fighting viciously and putting all her strength behind her attacks. However, it meant that she was not using her brains much. She decided to use this flaw. Once in position in front of the pillar, she just dodged the hits. No counterattack, no blocking, nothing. She just dodged so that Virtuous's strikes would land on the pillar. Soon enough, the wall above their heads looked like it could fall at any moment. 

"Are you not going to attack? Is this the best of House Zor-el?" Virtuous taunted her. 

"You are doing the attacking for me. Why should I waste my energy?" she commented before hitting the column behind her with a great power and speeding out of there. The wall fell right on top of Virtuous and the debris around them made the air all grey and dusty. 

As soon as Virtuous dug herself out, Kara put her immense strength to use and pounced on her. She hit her in her stomach before following it up with a punch to face. Virtuous tumbled across the room. She slowly dusted off her shirt before getting up. "I am going to enjoy our fight. It has been so long since someone was able to stand up to me. But this is not the time for it. See you soon, Kara Zor-El."

"You know, your threats would be more effective if you did not sound like a 10 year old being angry at their parents." she could feel the anger radiating out of Virtuous and that somehow made the situation more funny to her. 

Virtuous punched a wall and made a way out for herself. "Enjoy your last few days. Soon you all will be begging at your knees for mercy." she said before floating out. Seeing that the coast was clear, Kara put on her spectacles and listened to what was going on outside. 

"Maxwell Lord is a criminal. He has committed innumerable crimes against the alien community and today we are going to make sure he pays for his crimes." someone was monologuing while everyone was screaming in chaos. Alex and Vasquez were already down waiting for an opportune moment to strike. She searched for her favorite heartbeat in the world and as expected, it sounded like every Sunday night. She could bet that Lena would be rolling her eyes at the dialogue thinking, ' _They could have made it less obvious that Lord himself set this up_ '.

"Hope, status update."

"8% and climbing. Recommend stopping in a few minutes."

"Got it. Connect to Lee please."

"Connection successful." Hope affirmed after a few seconds.

"How is it looking down there, Lee?" she asked.

"Boring. I see you have been fighting. How did it go?"

"Interestingly. I will tell you everything later. Want me to crash their party?"

"No. Too many people around. I will distract them first. Get here on my call. Not before, not after. Exactly when I say so." she ordered before disconnecting. 

Kara patiently waited. She decided to use her time to check on the various unconscious bodies. The whole office was in a disarray. She kneeled in front of a young woman's body. She seemed to be sleeping, except her fingerprints were burned off and there were multiple syringe marks on her forearm.

"What do you think?"

"Comatose ma'am. Seems same as what was administered in Ms. Nia's roommate. Non-lethal but causes illness and mental issues for few days."

"What did she meant by not finishing her preparations?" 

"There seems to be a hidden room behind the left wall."

"On it. Try to identify these individuals. You are recording everything right? Lena would want to watch all these."

"Way ahead of you ma'am."

Kara looked around for some kind of hidden door when she suddenly remembered that she was using her powers. She punched the wall and went inside. There was a dismembered body lying on a chair with a smiley mask stapled on it. "Rao!" she covered her nose and looked closer to inspect. The fingerprints were burned off like the others and there was a huge symbol carved in the body's chest. She jotted everything she could in her mind and waited for Lena's call.

"Now." Lena's voice came through a second later and without wasting any moment she took off. She spotted her from above. One of the weird monsters was charging right her. She flew down and landed right in front of her. 

There were 4 hulking figures spread throughout the now empty park. How Lena managed to do this, she did not bother to ask right then? She had a job to do. Knowing that she didn't have much time, she decided to end this as quickly as possible. She used freeze breath to stop the one chasing Lena. Making sure that he will not be moving an inch, she moved towards the towards the two terrorizing Alex and Maggie. They were bravely holding their ground, but it seemed to be a losing battle. 

Reaching Alex, she picked one up from being before flying him high. At a height enough to easily kill a human being, she threw him at the other one. Both of them tried to stand up after the impact but she did not let it happen. She knocked both in one punch each and went for the last one moving. 

"Now what to do with you?"   
The monster lunged at her but after fighting such a high-speed battle with Virtuous, their movements seemed akin to a snail. She easily stopped his strike with one hand and hit her straight in the ground. She dragged him for a while before throwing him straight at the already fallen monsters.

She silently floated towards the frozen one. He was trying to move but you cannot really do much when you are hit with absolute zero temperature. She flew to his eye level before kicking him in the face, shattering the ice and knocking him out cold.

"Hope, anyone else in the perimeter?"

"All clear ma'am."

"Stop counting." As soon as she stopped her powers, she immediately became off-balance and fell backwards. However, Lena caught her in mid-air to stop her fall. "How much damage Hope?" she asked.

"15% ma'am." 

"Huh. Figures why I am seeing stars."

"Just hold on for a bit. Over here, Alex." Lena called Alex to help her.

"Is she all right?"

"Yeah. Just needs lots of rest. Help me carry her to the van."

"Sure." 

They both carried her to the van. "So, did we succeed, or was all of this for nothing?" she asked Winn who smiled at them.

"Big win. I will let her tell you about it." he spoke.

"Tell what?" a drowsy Kara asked. 

"Later darling, just rest for now." she patted her head. Kara felt sleepiness taking her over and she accepted it. Lena was here and she was safe. It was all that mattered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the chapter.  
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.  
> Thank you for reading!


	9. A New Appearance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Everyone. This is a quieter chapter. It just seemed weird to me to have two back to back chapters with Kara fighting, considering she used a lot of powers just in the last chapter. However, this has a guest appearance and I hope I was able to properly write the character. 
> 
> Back to punching things in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 9 : A New Appearance

January 2, 11:00 AM

It was a fine day outside. The sun was out in his full glory, there was a slight breeze and there were no clouds in sight. All in all, a beautiful Saturday to spend out picnicking with family, tanning or just wandering around the city; if you worked somewhere that was not the DEO. The atmosphere inside the building was the exact opposite of the glorious one outside.

It all happened when a video popped up on the internet late night. Millions of videos are uploaded on the internet on a daily basis but what made this special was the fact that it was the first public appearance of Agents of Liberty. And it was troubling to say the least. 

The video opened with a footage during Superman's fight with Lex Luthor where several innocents were caught in the crossfire of the brawl, prior to cutting to a different scene where an alien was seen terrorizing and killing humans rather graphically. The third and last section depicted the massacre which happened in the warehouse on Christmas Eve. A woman, probably Virtuous, went on a killing spree moving through humans as if blowing away leaves. These footages were followed up by a man in mask delivering a speech. 

"What we saw right now was a small-scale result of the various crimes committed by aliens living among us. This has become a problem for humanity as a whole, but do we see our government take any action against these heinous crimes? No. How long will humans have to suffer and die by the actions of these unwanted guests?"

The video displayed the pictures of Lord's gala. "This is what happened on New Year's eve, just days after the 'Warehouse Massacre.' Even the elitists and top 1% are not safe anymore. We cannot let these crimes against humanity go unanswered. Do you want to live in a world where you can be a collateral just because some alien is pissed off? Or do you want things to go back to a time where we were able to live without fear? Join us in our fight against the extra-terrestrials. We must take Earth back and this fight begins now. I am Agent Liberty, and we are the Children of Liberty. We stand united for our home."

To say the video had exploded on various social media platforms would be understatement. Everyone seemed to be talking about it, it was trending everywhere. Due to this, everyone at the DEO was swamped with work. J'onn was constantly in meetings with his superiors, Winn was herding the cyber cell to diminish the conversation from the video. Even Lucy Lane was present in the base. It was enough to show how serious everyone was regarding the situation, as Lucy was never there without presence of some form of crisis. 

Meanwhile, Kara, along with Alex and Lena was sitting in infirmary bed working out a few things which were in her head. She had slept throughout the last day. Well, she did not have any new year's plan anyway. Probably would have just sat in home with Lee. However, unlike Alex, she was not much concerned with the video itself. Her first reaction on seeing it was, "They changed their names? It's a shame, I liked Agents of Liberty. Children of Liberty seems less threatening."

"Seriously, that's what you picked up?" Alex narrowed her eyes at her.

"What? Was I supposed to lose my mind over this? It is just a harmless video Alex. Sure, it will get people talking and have wars on twitter, but only like 1% will actually do something in real life, and let's be honest, these kinds of people already despise anything which is not 100% human DNA. For the other 99%, they did not give any proof that they were doing anything to benefit humans, just blamed aliens."

"So, what should we do in your opinion?"

"Prevent their next move. They are planning something that pulls the public towards them, probably bunch of alien attacks. If we stop any situation from escalating, it would be just fine. We are already in their servers, just need to figure out their next steps and take it from there." she took a breath and continued. "Also, we need to a way to contact the aliens living in National City, to make sure they do not take unnecessary actions. Not everyone is lucky enough to blend in with humans like me and they would be panicking over this. I think a direct communication would help calm them." 

And that is exactly what they were working on. Lena was checking through the various Agents, nope, Children of Liberty webservers and conversations to pinpoint their next moves and Alex and Kara were busy contacting several members or helpers of the alien community to spread the message to not panic. 

"Okay! Shouldn't there be an alien representative working in the DEO? That would make our job way easier." Kara complained after a while. Despite her claims, she had still not recovered, and her head was hurting after working.

"Probably. It is hard to find someone who would be trusted throughout the innumerable cultures and customs. Even if we had someone, it's no guarantee everyone will trust them." Alex replied.

"Take it easy Kar. You are still recovering." Lena looked up at her from her laptop with concerned eyes. Somehow, she always figured out what was exactly wrong with her before she could voice her troubles.

"I am. Promise." she put her hand up in air and gave her a weird salute. 

Before she could put her hand down, Vasquez peeped in the room. "The Director is asking for both of you." She pointed towards Alex and Kara. 

"Nope. She is not going anywhere." Lena spoke before either of them could open their mouths. "Complete rest. That is what she needs right now. If the director needs to have such an important conversation, he could come here himself."

"Don't be mad at me. I am only the messenger." she looked at Alex. "Ma'am?"

Alex sighed. "She would be fine for short distances..." she drawled while Lena gave her a death glare. "Buuut.... we should not take any risks."

"Do I get to say anything?" Kara raised her hand.

"No." Both Alex and Lena replied at same time.

"Got it. Just asking. Don't mind me."

"I will pass on the message then." Vasquez spoke before moving out.

Just a few minutes later, J'onn and Lucy were knocking on the door. "Please come in Sir."

"I hope you are feeling all right." J'onn spoke calmly but his appearance and features were telling that he was pretty stressed out. "May we have the room please?" he asked Lena.

"Sure. I have to run to home for a couple of things anyway. I'll be back later." Lena got up and kissed Kara on the forehead before heading out. She watched her go with a faint smile on her face. She was brought back to reality when Lucy snapped her fingers in front of her face.

"Yo lovesick puppy. Think about her later. We got work to do." Lucy paused for a second taking in her appearance. "You look like complete shit."

"Still better than you, then." Kara whispered under her breath.

"I heard that. But I am letting it go today." she occupied Lena's chair and J'onn took seat on her other side. "We need something. Everyone has been breathing down our necks for assurance that we are already ahead of this 'radical group'."

"I have been briefed about the mission's success yesterday, but I am hoping that you had some information that others were not able to pick up." J'onn asked curiously.

Kara did not reply at that. She quietly looked around the room. Noticing a pen and paper on her bedside desk, she picked it up and started drawing a couple of doodles. 

"Okay. I have some good and some very very bad news to share. Which do you prefer first?" she asked.

"Umm... go with the good one first. I need some positivity right now." Lucy voiced her choice.

"Sure." she flipped the paper around for others to see. "As far as I know, and I believe that I am right on this, this whole Agents or Children of Liberty is idea of Maxwell Lord and Virtuous. They both are the de-facto leaders. Fortunately for us, she is working with him because she owes him something." she circled their names on the paper before making another circle below Lord’s name in which she wrote Agent Liberty.

"Good news is, I have pretty much figured out Maxwell's plan. He wants control and power and the best way of getting it is through dividing us. Aliens living among humans has always been like a time bomb, he just wants to use it for his own gain. Classic bad guy stuff. I will not worry about it much. Unfortunately, everything else I found out is bad."

"How bad?" Lucy questioned.

"With everything that has been going on, Virtuous has still now clarified what she wants from all this. She is with Lord because their goals align, at least for the time. I have no clue what her end goals are. Best case scenario, she is a psycho, but considering our lucks, she might be playing all of us for fools. In short, she is the one we have to look out for." she looked at the page again.

"It doesn't help the fact that she is Kryptonian too." Kara whispered again. 

"What?" The color on everyone's face drained.

"Yeaaahhh..... might want to start working on something that can contain a very angry Kryptonian. I had my doubts about her since our first meeting and Lord pretty much confirmed it when he bragged to Lena that Superman was not the strongest one anymore. As far as I know, only a handful of them made out of Krypton and..." she looked towards Lucy, who was the only one in the room who did not know about her heritage. "And I know all of them. No one is stronger than Superman. This leaves only one suspicious person which is our very own Virtuous."

"Dammit. As if we don't have enough trouble." Lucy commented. "Do you know anything else?"

"Um... She probably arrived when Superman was a baby because the fortress of solitude keeps track of everything that arrives from outer space. Only way she came on Earth without any information is when he was a child as the fortress was activated when he first entered it, about 16 years ago.” 

"Why make her presence known now? She could have done this years ago." Alex thought out loud.

Kara shrugged. "No idea. This is what makes her the most problematic. Lord is clever, sure. But I can always guess what he is going to do. I have no clue what she wants."

"This is an interesting development. Dangerous for sure, but interesting nonetheless." J'onn spoke up. "Alex, respond to my office in 10 minutes. Drop anything you have been working on. I have a new objective for you. Major Lane, will you please brief Kara about her next work?"

"As if I have any other option." Lucy said under her breath. 

"Thank you Major. I have to work. The higher ups are not going to like this." He said in a tired voice and went out of the room, followed by Alex, leaving only Lucy and Kara in her room.

"Why were you lying?" Lucy pointed out abruptly.

"Hmm? I-I have got no idea what you are saying." she defended. "Why would I lie?"

"I asked first."

"I wasn't. Look I would love to fool around but I must rest before Lee murders me for overworking. So, can we move on please?" she tried changing the topic. 

"If you insist. It would be funny seeing her strangle you to death. Anyway, what do you know about Livewire?"

"Who?"

"Thought so. You were in middle east at the time she made headlines." she took her phone out and typed something. Giving it to Kara she explained, "Meet Leslie Willis. She used to work as a shock jock at CatCo and was pretty good at it. Unfortunately for her, everything went straight downhill when her helicopter was struck by lightning. Everyone thought she was dead but turns out she got superpowers. However, the shock also completely fried her brains out. She named herself Livewire and tried to go after Cat Grant. We stopped her but somehow, she was able to run away. Completely off the grid, until two days ago, when we spotted her talking to someone we know."

She opened a picture in which Virtuous was seen talking to Livewire. "We need you to find out what made her come out of hiding after all this time. Winn will give everything we have."

"I am not going anywhere today. Might have to check in with Alex when I can start working again. She has made herself my doctor."

"Get on this whenever you are better. The sooner all this is over, the quickly I can go back to the desert base. It's so peaceful there."

Kara nodded while Lucy gave her a side hug. "Get well soon and be careful next time."

"Since when are you nice to me?"

"I am always nice." she winked and left. 

Kara smiled to herself and put on her glasses. "All right Hope. Time to work. Get me everything on Leslie Willis." 

"On it boss."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January 4, 1PM

Kara had spent majority of her last two days trying to track down Livewire. Her search had taken her to some unique places... namely three drug dens, a community house for old age and an abandoned trainyard.

"How? I mean there must be some correlation that you are ending up in these places." Winn asked over a phone call.

"Don't ask. The stupid algorithm is garbage. Why did I think it would be a good idea?"

"Maybe you should have rested a bit more. Your sound very unfocused."

Well luckily for Kara, the voices ensured that she was always unfocused. Deciding that her strategy was not working at all, she decided to take a few steps back. That's how she found herself standing on the 31st floor of a skyscraper with giant logo of CatCo. 

"Where are you Nia?" she mumbled to herself looking for the young reporter. Just when she was about to give up on finding her and move to do her work, someone tapped her shoulder. 

"Hey! How are you?" she was engulfed in a hug as soon as she turned. "You haven't come back in like 4 days and Lena is always cryptic with her updates."

' _What does k-cra- cryptic mean?_ ' someone said in her mind.

Ignoring the voice, Kara replied, "I am fine. Getting better slowly. I am sorry I had to stop your training for this. But I will be home today, we can start it again soon." 

"I can always do that myself. Don't worry about it too much." she waved away her apology.

"Just keep working on it. Those guys will come after you sooner or later and you need to be ready when they do."

"I will." Nia nodded in determination.

Kara was feeling a bit stifled in the room. There were almost 10 different voices with everyone yelling at each other for work. Maybe she should have rested a bit longer. Being trained to fight in urban areas, she should not have this much trouble focusing. Plus, her legs were protesting pretty bad, making her walking seem hobble in anyone else’s eyes.

"Are you all right? You seem a bit green."

"Hmm? Yeah. I am fine. So where is the queen of all media? I am not going to lie; she seems kind of intimidating."

"She is." Nia quickly nodded. "I have talked to her two times and I was sweating buckets both times. But she is a nice boss and always appreciates someone who is willing to stand up for themselves and doesn't waste her time. You should do just fine."

"Heh." she chuckled nervously. _'I am so underprepared. I don't even know what to ask.'_

"NIA? WHERE IS THE STORY?" someone screamed out of nowhere.

"Oh shoot! I forgot. Go talk to the assistant sitting there, I will meet up with you later." she hastily told her and hurried away.

' _Is this place always like this?_ ' she thought looking at the scenes around her. Everyone was rushing to finish their jobs without caring about anything else. She wondered if in some other life she could have worked here too. ' _Nah! You will have a meltdown in one day._ ' Lena's voice answered. 

She slowly walked towards assistant of Cat Grant, who somehow looked even more frazzled than the rest of the employees. "Excuse me. I am here to see Ms. Grant." she stated her purpose.

"And I want to meet with God." the assistant shot back without even looking up from her work.

"I- I have an appointment scheduled at 1:15. I am Captain Kara Zorel from FBI." she spoke tentatively putting forward her badge.

"Go right in then. What are you wasting my time for?" she snapped. "Now where would I get this from?"

And just like that, she was engrossed back in work. Kara looked in horror as the person in front of her called someone while editing something on her computer and changing the many post-its that were stuck to the worktable. She quietly limped away and knocked on office door.

"Come in." A voice replied.

She slowly opened the door. The first thing she saw were TV's. So many of them, with different news on each. Directing her attention away from them, she looked at the sole occupant of the room. Cat Grant was staring right at her with calculating eyes, as if working out all her secrets.

"I have a new assistant for now. You can try again in a week." she dismissed her.

"Oh no, no. I am not here for a job. I just had to ask a few questions regarding a case. I am Captain Ka-"

"You are from FBI?" she cut her off and gazed at her as if not believing her at all. "Didn't know they started to allow kindergarteners to dress up people." 

"What's wrong with fuchsia cardigans? I like it. Not everyone has to dress in black suit for intimidation." she immediately defended herself. 

Her reaction was met with an exaggerated eye roll that Lena would be proud of. "Sure, they don't. As bad as your dressing sense is, if it could even be called "sense", we are not here to talk about it, Captain Kiera. Now sit down before your leg gives out."

Kara sat down before her brain registered the later part of Cat's sentence. "My name is not Kiera, it's K-"

"I was told you wanted to know about Leslie. What do you need?"

"She was after you when she got powers. Why was it so and why did she give up?"

"The usual. I fired her for spreading beliefs that were not in line with what I have curated over the years for the company. She took it personally and wanted revenge. The drama happened and she figured out that messing with me was not worth it. End of story."

Kara gave a wry smile. "Contrary to my looks, I am not an idiot. And for someone who runs a multi-billionaire media company, you are awful at telling stories. I could have gone on internet if I wanted the TL; DR."

"You do have a backbone." Ms. Grant gave her an impressed look. "I made a deal. I am not going to say anything else until you tell me why you are interested in this after years."

"She is back. And was spotted in not so good company. If she is mixed up with what I am working on, it won't be good for anyone."

Cat gave her a weird look again. After a few minutes of silence and peering at Kara, she slowly said, "You have to help her. She would never align herself with someone evil willingly."

Of all the responses, Kara was not expecting that. "I-Why?"

She sighed deeply. "I assume you know about the helicopter incident." seeing Kara nod, she continued. "It affected her psyche. The Livewire part of her was at peak when she committed those crimes. However, with the passage of time, she became someone who was neither Livewire nor Leslie. She is not completely innocent, but she is also not someone who would try to wreak havoc."

"So, you are saying that Leslie is not Livewire but someone new entirely."

"I don't understand the finer details, but for all purposes, yes. She is a new person entirely. One who does not want violence."

' _Well, this is interesting_.' Kara's mind was buzzing with the new information. "Do you have any idea where to find her?"

"No. The last thing she told me was that she was sorry for what she had done and wanted to repent for her actions. I haven't seen her since then."

"Hmm." There was a plan formulating in her brain, but it seemed borderline insane. ' _Don't even think about it, we would be toast without our powers. Didn't you read the reports?_ ' the voices screamed at her.

"You are still not telling me everything, Ms. Grant." she probed.

Cat scoffed at her. "Of course, I am not. Do you really think I am going to tell one of my secrets to someone whom I met 5 minutes ago? Now if you do not have any more questions, see yourself out."

' _No. Don't. It’s a bad idea_.'

"If you want me to help her, I am going to need your help first."

  
"I am not doing anything. You wanted to know about her, and I have done that. The last thing I want is someone wasting my time on a goose hunt. If she does not want to be found, you would never find her." Cat replied.

"Well, not to brag, but finding seemingly impossible is in my job description." As soon as she uttered these words, Kara knew it was bad. ' _Seriously. What was that line?_ ' Lena's voice pointed out. In her defense, it sounded much cooler in her head. ' _No, it really did not_.' Cringing at herself, she examined Ms. Grant's response, who was looking at her as if she had lost all her faith.

  
"Sorry about that. What I wanted to say is that I might have a plan and it would go much smoother if you decided to help. I will make it work nonetheless, but it would be time consuming. And time is something we really do not have, so I ask you to think about it. I promise that no harm will come to you and your participation would be as minimal as possible." she finished.

They sat in awkward silence for a solid two minutes. "Usually this kind of speeches are followed by something where I can contact you. I am not giving you any answer right now."

"Oh... yeah sure. I can give you my number."

"Please don't." Cat picked her table phone and dialed something. "Get in here."

Merely seconds later, the frazzled assistant came into the room. "You called Ms. Grant?"

"No. Someone else just told you to come in my office.” She sassed before sighing. “Millennials. Always asking unnecessary questions. Anyway, take Kiera's contact and store it somewhere safe. I might need it later."

"Of course, ma'am." Neither Kara nor she moved after this.

"Want to join for lunch?" Cat asked.

"Umm... nooo?" Kara drawled.

"Then what are you two still doing here. Get out of here. Chop chop. I got actual work to do." 

Kara quickly nodded and got up before beelining straight out of the office. She gave her number and e-mail to the assistant before deciding to go to the DEO. She had already overshot the time Alex had specified for the case and Lena would be out for blood if she did not return soon. 

Later that evening, she was messing around with Winn at the hub. "Don't do that. I worked hard to get it." he snatched a superman figurine out of her hands.

"It's weird you have Superman stuff."

"Why? Thousands of other people have it too."'

"Yeah. But they do not show it blatantly to someone who already knows the guy personally. Plus, you kind of creep me out. It's bizarre how much you stalk him."

"The only bizarre thing is your plan. Do you have a wish of being toasted alive or something?" he shot back.

"It will work. Just get started on the schematics." Her phone rang at that exact moment. She picked it up without seeing who it was, something she had tried changing for so long but never really worked out.

"Hello!"

"Is this Kiera?" the name was a dead giveaway of who was calling her.

"Kara. It's Kara, Ms. Grant." she mumbled.

"That's what I said, Kiera. I have decided to help you. But I have my own conditions that must be met without questions."

"I can work with that." she answered after a moment. "Thank you. I will tell you the proposition once we have finalized it. We can discuss the details sometime later."

The call was cut with a grunt from the other side. Well, she will take it. Winn who was listening to her conversation raised his brows. "That is not good you know. You are going to need a proper plan now. Something tells me Cat Grant won't be happy if you decided to "wing" it. Also, the director will murder you if she somehow figured out who you really work for."

"That is a problem. Buuuut... you are the only one who knows I don't have a real plan; she doesn't need to know that. I will come up with something and before she figures anything out, our plan will work, and we will be in the clear."

Winn gave her a weary face. "I suppose I need to get started on it right now."

"Yeahhh... Sorry for that. I will buy you some food for helping me out."

"That means nothing to me."

"That is your problem then. I am gonna go home now. See ya later."

She decided to call it an early night. She was going to need all the energy she could gather for this to work out, otherwise... Nope, not thinking about the negatives. Everything was going to go just fine... Right? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.
> 
> Stay safe out there. The world is kinda weird right now.


	10. Making New Friends?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few interesting things happen here, with a little foreshadowing.  
> Hope you all enjoy.

Chapter 10: MAKING NEW FRIENDS?

  
January 4, 9PM

Alex was feeling nervous, which was absurd for her. Out of all the emotions, nervousness was the one she was most unfamiliar with. It was made more outlandish by the fact that she was feeling anxious because she had to talk to someone. Well, it was not just 'someone'. She was pretty sure that Maggie was at least her good friend. And that made her afraid of saying anything. What if it all goes down the rails?

She was busy sorting her thoughts while Maggie walked through the front door. They were meeting in their usual bar. It had become some kind of unofficial meet up place of theirs. And despite looking rustic, it had its charms. Tonight, was another slow night as there were only a handful of people milling around. To be fair, it was a Monday night and the recent attacks had only made more people afraid of hanging out. 

"What's up Danvers? It has been some time. Did something happen?" Maggie said taking a seat opposite her in the booth.

"Uh..." One look at Maggie and she was tongue tied again. _'Start speaking weirdo'_ , she scolded herself. "You look tired. Long day?" she blurted out completely unrelated to the previous sentences. 

Maggie chuckled softly. "Something like that. It has been a complete shitshow since the video. Everyone has been working double time. The number of idiots who think that they can take law in their hands is astounding. How has your department dealing with this? I assume it would be worst for you."

"Surprisingly, no." She replied honestly. "We have increased workload, but we are not being grilled. Probably because of Kara, she says that she has a plan."

"That kid is something else. I still do not understand how she figures out everything. It must be a sight to see her work."

"Sure, if she did not eat that much on the job." she laughed lightly.

The conversation flowed rather smoothly after the initial hiccup. One of the she liked about Maggie the most was that she was a damn good conversationalist. Even if you are a shy, introvert person, she made sure that you were taking a part in the discussion. Soon it was time for them to part their ways for the night.

_'I can do this.'_ Alex thought encouraging herself for the next words she was about to say.

"Umm... so did you have a good time?" she asked in a small voice.

"Yeah. It’s fun hanging out with you. We should do this again sometime soon."

"No. I just... Will you go out on a date with me?" she whispered so softly that she herself had a hard time hearing it.

"Hmm? I did not catch that, like at all."

Steeling herself, she took a deep breath. "I asked will you go out with me?" she spoke much clearer this time.

Maggie paused for a minute. "Suure... where do we need to go?"

"No, no." Alex was losing her confidence fast. "Go out like a date."

The unreadable expression on Maggie's face did not do any good for her nerves. A heavy silence hung in the air in which they both just stared at each other, Alex much less confidently than her. The tension was suddenly broken by Maggie's laugh.

"Nice joke. You got me with that one. Did someone put you up to this? Hilarious prank."

Alex was befuddled. "No. No one put me up to anything. I am serious ab-"

"Stop." Maggie held up a hand. "Don't. Just don't. You cannot do this. We had a good time, let's just leave the night at that." she got up and made her way outside.

Alex quickly got up on her feet and followed her out. "Wait! Please. What did I do wrong? Please."

She stopped right in front of her bike. Turning around, she took a deep sigh before speaking, "It does not work like this Danvers. You were pretty adamant that we should just be friends. And I have done exactly that. Just when I was getting comfortable with it, you say all that crap. You cannot go around playing with my emotions like that." she rambled. "Why now? What changed in three weeks?"

"I-I needed time to think. I was not sure at that time."

"And you are now?" Maggie cut her off. Alex had no answer to that. She so desperately wanted to say yes, but she also did not want to lie to her. "So, if you decide that you do not want this three days into it, what about me then? Do you expect us to again go back to being buddies? Because if you do, I cannot do that."

"Ju-Just hear me out please." Alex begged quietly. "I don't know if I want this in the long run. Hell, I am not even sure that this would even work out. What I do know is that I feel something between us, and I just wanted an opportunity to explore it." seeing that Maggie was not replying, she continued. "Just one date. I will even plan it. If you decide to say no, then I will try my best to stay away from you. I can promise that much."

Neither of them spoke after this. Alex had never wanted the power to read minds so badly in her minds. Maggie was looking in the distance, lost in her thoughts. After several minutes, she silently put on her helmet. "I need time. I can't do this right now."

Alex felt like she was in a nightmare. She silently watched her leave her sights and there was nothing she could do to stop it. "Fuck!" she cursed loudly at herself. Knowing that nothing could be done right then, she also decided to call it a night. 

She said she needed time, so maybe there was glimmer of hope. Nah. Who was she kidding? She probably had ruined everything. With a sour mood, she went home. There was still lot to do at the DEO the next day. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January 5, 8AM

10 Hours. That's all they had. Kara was sure that they could pull it off in time. Her voices were... uncertain to say the least. She could deal with it if only they were opposing it. But seeing everyone else tear into her plan was turning out to be very demoralizing. Winn had already expressed his disapproval, now J'onn had told her that he was concerned. 

Trying to understand why everyone detested it, she did some research. The main problem was Cat Grant. Now, she gets why everyone was kind of on edge. She was dragging a high-profile civilian in her investigation, but it was not like she did not have contingencies. She just... did not want to tell them because that would completely ruin the plan. 

"Where was this concern when we took Lee out on a much dangerous mission last week?" she had asked J'onn earlier. 

"She is Lena Luthor. We all know what she is capable of. She has been in much worse conditions, about which you probably know better than I do. Ms. Grant is a whole other scenario. Albeit being a strong-willed person, she has no experience in these types of situations. Plus, she runs CatCo; so if something goes wrong and she decides to turn on us, I believe DEO would be over before we can even say sorry."

"Fair points." she had to concede in the end. She was still mad at the double standard; just because Lena had experience does not mean no one should care about her too. But she understood everyone's fears. Thus, to ensure that everything went as smoothly as possible, she was trying her best to prepare everything. 

The biggest hurdle was finding a way to neutralize Livewire's powers. It would have not been an issue if she could use her powers too, but considering her condition at the moment, it was not an option at all. She had spent the last night brainstorming with Winn on a solution for this. They had an outline sketch prepared and a whole team of engineers at the DEO was working on it. By working, she meant cursing her for putting something like this on their back.

Kara was sitting in the DEO hub thinking about everything when she saw a frazzled Alex entering. _'What happened there? Usually she is very professional.'_ A voice piped up. A little bit concerned, she got up and ran to her side.

  
"Hey! Good morning." she said in a cheery voice.

"Huh? G-good morning to you too." Alex looked completely out of focus. This grew her concern as being out of focus was her job. Alex was supposed to be the one who always kept everyone's mind in the game.

"Are you fine? Cause you do not look fine. I don't mean it in a bad way. Everyone can have a bad day. It is just you normally don't. But if you are having one, its completely fine. You know what, I am going to shut up right about now." she rambled.

"I am fine Kara. Just could not sleep properly last night."

"Oh! I have PhD in that. Was it nightmares? If it was, then I recommend meditation and herbal tea. It helps a lot." 

Alex sighed. "No. It was... never mind. Why did you call me this early? Did you get something?"

"Yup. I am trying to get to Livewire. Come to hub in 5 minutes, I will explain everything." Exactly 5 minutes later, Kara had a map of National City open on the giant screen. "So, what are you doing?" Alex asked.

"We are kidnapping Cat Grant." The face she received in response was full of confusion. "I am sorry, what? I think I did not hear you. We are talking about The Cat Grant, right?"

"Yeah. And before you call this stupid too, just hear me out." she said scratching the back of her neck. She was pretty sure that her confidence could not take another blow. 

"Go ahead then." Alex sat on the nearby stool.

"Thanks. Let us start with the why the said kidnapping? Livewire, or as I am going to call her, Leslie, has been underground for years now. There have been three sightings of her. One, three years ago when Ms. Grant's charity gala was attacked by some radicals." she switched the screen to a photo of a woman in a hoodie controlling electricity.

"Second, when some idiots tried to kidnap her son. And third a few days ago with our friend Virtuous. Remove the last one from the equation right now. What was the common thing in the last two sightings?"

"Cat Grant." Alex spoke slowly, trying to absorb everything.

"Exactly. Now that got me thinking, why would someone who is so high on every criminal list ever would try to help Ms. Grant of all people? She is risking her life every time she resurfaces, even though she is pretty stealthy about everything. To get answer for this, I went to talk to Ms. Grant yesterday." 

"And?"

"She saved her. Lucy told me that Livewire should not have been able to get away all those years ago. They had her completely pinned. I believe that Ms. Grant helped her escape. Therefore, she always saves her and her family because she thinks that she owes her."

Alex looked thoughtful. "That's a long shot Kara. I mean, you are insinuating that Ms. Grant helped a criminal run away. Why? As far as I know about her, she would be the first to let her get arrested, especially since she tried to kill her."

"She feels guilty. This all happened because she fired Leslie. Now she should have been reprimanded for what she said on air but firing without warning was kind of taking it too far. I think she feels that Leslie became Livewire because of her. That's why she helped her when she found that she is changed."

"Interesting. What about your plan? I assume you are going to use Cat as bait."

"Bingo. We stage a kidnapping; Leslie comes to save her. We talk it out and we get a bit closer to Virtuous's plan."

"Something tells her that this won't be this easy. Does not matter how much she is changed, if she decided to kill you, you won't stand much chance right now. You need a way to contain her." Alex said putting her concerns on the table.

"I have. Just need to make sure it works."

"You know, something tells me that this complex plan can be avoided if you just ask Ms. Grant to arrange a meeting. Why go so far?" Alex asked getting up.

"She said no. They don’t have any means of contact. She just pops up to help every now and then. And Ms. Grant already knows about this. So, there is no "actual" kidnapping."

"And where do I come in?"

"You are going to be the supervisor. I will not be able to call the shots that much, Susan will be with me, Winn is a weirdo. And before you say no, I asked J'onn. He said you can take a one day leave on whatever he has got you doing."

"All right. Let's hope this doesn't go south."

"It won't."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January 5, 6 PM

"Alpha one, are you in position?" Alex's voice ringed through her ear. 

"Affirmative." she said back.

"The plan is a go in 5 minutes. Good luck to everyone. Overwatch out."

Kara took deep breaths. She and Vasquez were right outside CatCo building in a shady van, waiting for Cat Grant to walk out. From there, they were going to drive to an abandoned warehouse near the docks. If everything went accordingly, then she should be at home by 11. Just thinking of home made her remember that she had not seen Lena in over 36 hours, which made her feel sad. She was definitely taking the weekend off. 

"Target in sight." Vasquez nudged her. 

Looking out, she saw Cat Grant walking idly towards her car. They both quickly got out of the van. As soon as Cat sat inside her car, Kara nodded at Vasquez and they both entered the car too. "Get out." Vasquez told pointing a gun at the driver. 

"I-I" The driver looked at them before making a run for it. Kara took control of the car and slowly drove them away from the building.

"He is getting fired tomorrow. Didn't even think of staying behind. Coward." Cat muttered under her breath.

Kara chuckled lightly. "Overwatch, how long we got?" she asked after a few minutes. 

"A call went to police about 2 minutes ago."

"Okie. Hang tight." she told the passengers before punching the accelerator.  
The car picked up pace as Kara expertly cut through the traffic. She could hear Cat cursing at her for the speed, but she tuned her out. Soon, they were outside the warehouse where everything was setup. "Everyone all right?" she asked shutting down the engine.

"Where did you learn to drive? I have seen teenagers driving better than you." Cat complained getting out.

"It was awesome ma'am. Don't listen to her." Vasquez approved with an impressed face.

They stepped inside the deserted building. She quickly found a lighter on a table and lit some candles. The place was completely empty except for the table and three chairs, one of which Cat swiftly acquired. Vasquez took guard outside and Kara stood near a wall. 

"You should sit down." Ms. Grant said after some time pointing towards one of her leg.

"Don't worry Ms. Grant. I am used to it." she replied smiling. "It looks much worse than it feels."

"What happened? If you don't mind me asking." Cat continued the conversation. 

"Bullet to the spine. A mission went very very wrong. I got deported back after that. It was a nuisance at first, but everything becomes easier with time. You kind of get used to the pain after a while. The real struggle is mentally accepting yourself." she opened up.

"And you have troubles with that, don't you?"

"I don't know. Everyone tells me that this does not change much. But in truth everything has changed. I am not half capable of doing things which I did before. Somedays I feel good about my recovery, other days I regret what happened. It's all a roller coaster. At least I have someone to help me through all this. If I were alone, I don't think I would have made it." she said twisting her wedding ring.

"Never compare yourself to your past. We always remember the best parts of life; this is why present always seems worse. You may not be able to do somethings which you could do, but do not forget about what you are capable of now. Past is nothing but a book from which we need to learn and move on." Cat advised. 

Kara took a moment to absorb it and nodded. "Now what about this place, couldn't your little bureau have picked a better place?" Ms. Grant was back to her sassy self.

Before she could reply, Vasquez's voice came through the front door. "I am seeing lots of flickering of lights ma'am."

"Earlier than expected." Kara mumbled. "Get in Vas. Overwatch, the plan is a go." she said in her comms before taking them out and crushing them.

"What was that about?" Cat asked confusedly.

"There are electronic circuits in it. Non-lethal as they have very less voltage, but still enough to have lasting effect. I am not a fan of getting my head messed up. That's why your phone is in the car too." she explained.

"Going to my position." Vasquez told her before rushing off to a high advantage point, from where she could shoot Livewire if something went wrong.

Now that every preparation was done, they all waited with bated breath. Either this was going to go okay, or extremely bad. ' _Considering our luck, I am betting on extremely bad._ ' The voices commented. "Shut up." she whispered. 

Soon enough, a woman with ashen white hair walked in. She looked at her once before focusing on Cat, checking for any signs of injury. Kara stepped forward to introduce herself but stopped when she was suddenly punched in the face. 

"What was that for?" she wiped the blood off her cut lip. Instead of replying, Livewire tried using her powers which did not work. She looked at her hand if they had betrayed her. "What have you done?" she rounded up on Kara in anger.

"Hey! Just listen, will you?" she was barely able to utter these words when another punch flew right at her. She dodged it easily. "I can explain everything. Just stop acting like a nitwit."

"I know who you work for. Virtuous told me everything. You would hurt Cat after getting to me." she commented and aimed a kick at her chest.

Stepping aside, Kara tried appealing again. "Look at her, she is just fine. I don't want to hurt anyone here. Please calm down. Just ask her."

Livewire looked at Cat for confirmation. Seeing her nod, she looked thoughtful for a moment. "No. You are using her. I have seen you before, you are a monster." she declared and resumed her attacks.

"Hard way it is." Kara sighed before counterattacking. Leslie was a good fighter; she will give her that. She immediately spotted her hobbling and tried to focus on her legs and even got a few hits in. However, as soon as Kara started fighting back, it was clear that she was in a different league. 

Livewire was more or less dependent on her powers in any kind of situation, whereas Kara used hers as extension to her already present skillset. Thus, when powers were removed from the equation, she easily grabbed the upper hand. She effortlessly stopped the attacks and reciprocated with her own hits. Leslie tried to off-balance her by quickly going around her, but she immediately understood her intentions and stopped her midway with a strike to her stomach. 

Taking a few steps back, Livewire picked up the chair lying and tried to slam her with it. She swiftly moved out of her range. However, she did not move enough as the second she looked back; she saw the chair flying at her. Putting her arms forward, she deflected most of the damage. 

"All right, that's enough. Final Warning." she said getting back up on her feet. What followed was a brutal showcase of strength as Kara briskly thrashed Livewire. Every single attack was met with five in response. Her combination of speed and strength finished the brawl in mere seconds. 

Livewire was panting heavily on her knees. Before Kara could say or do anything else, Vasquez shot her in the back. "Why now? I had her." she questioned.

"She was not going to give up ma'am. Look at her hand." Turning Leslie’s unconscious body around, she saw that she was clutching to a large splinter.

Kara sighed. "Well, it could have gone worse. At least the plan worked. She did not have her powers." She looked at Cat who was looking at the scene horrified. "Sorry for the mess, Ms. Grant. Do you want to stay? Vas can drop you off if you want to. She is not gonna wake up for at least an hour."

"I am going to stay. I just did not expect things to get this violent."

"As you wish." She said while Vasquez pointed her arms. "You are bleeding ma'am. I will get the first aid." Kara looked down to see a few trickles of blood flowing. She probably got injured when she blocked the chair. ' _Should have moved away._ ' A voice told her.

An hour later, she was all bandaged up, waiting for Livewire to regain consciousness. Susan was outside briefing the team and Cat was pacing around. For some reason, her mind was going back to what Leslie said, ' _I have seen you before, you are a monster._ ' When did she saw her?

  
"Hmm?" Livewire gruntled. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at her surroundings. Seeing this, Cat immediately stopped her pacing and stood right behind Kara. 

"Welcome back. Ready to talk now?" Kara greeted happily.

"Fuck off." she cursed. There was a flicker of surprise on her face on seeing that she was not bound, but she quickly schooled her features. "Why did my powers not work?" she asked after an awkward moment of silence.

"Science. This whole building acts like an inductor. We removed any remaining source of electricity from the vicinity and boom, you cannot use your powers anymore. Took a long time to build this." she said proudly.

"So, if I go out, I can fry you to all my liking?" 

"Yup. But before that I wanted to talk for a little while. It would be an inconvenience to fight again."

"I don't think you can blondie. I will not fall for the same thing next time. You would be dead before you can say a single word."

"Leslie. Listen to her. You are getting involved with some really messed up things." Ms. Grant spoke up for the first time. "That woman is not good news."

"I know." she sighed. "I was lying low as usual when she suddenly showed up. Blew away my entire cover. Threatened to kill someone important to me. I have to work with her. It's not my choice to be anywhere near that fucked up bitch."

"What does she want you to do? Maybe I can help you in some way."

"Unless you want to rule humanity, I don't think you can help." she replied angrily before sighing again. "She wants me to fry up the power grid on 10th January. She was rambling something in her stupid childish voice. I didn't give her much attention except for listening to what I must do.

"Can I give you a preposition to change sides?" Kara asked.

"No, but I am going to give you the shock of your life. Stop assuming you know what is going in my mind."

"But I do. You fear Virtuous. And you should be. Not every day a Kryptonian walks up to you and demands to do something for her. I also know that the only reason you are not running outside right now is because you really don't want to do it." she explained.

"I don't want to, but I must. There are not a lot of people I care about in this world." she pointed towards Cat. "But I would kill the whole world for the ones I do. So, take your moral shit somewhere else and just arrest me."

Kara sighed. "I am not going to do anything like that. You are free to go." 

"What?" both Leslie and Cat asked at the same time.

"Why are you surprised? Even if I arrest her right now, Virtuous is going to find someone else for the job or change the plan entirely. At least with you I know what I am getting myself into."

"You are the biggest idiot I have seen in my life blondie. A piece of advice don't bother coming in my way next time. I will make sure that it would be your last day on Earth."

"Sure." Kara said getting up. 

Livewire checked around to make sure that this was not some kind of trap. Slowly moving outside, she gave another confusing look to Kara before transforming herself into electricity and travelling away. 

"Well, that was that. I will drop you at home Ms. Grant. Thank you so much for all the help." Kara told looking at the watch. "Can we hurry up a bit? I need to get home early today."

"You are up to something, aren't you? There was no reason for you to let her go." Cat asked still astounded at the fact that she let Leslie go free.

Kara gave a small smile. "Of course, I am. But you are a civilian. I can't tell you anything." she spoke while walking towards the car. She got in before speaking, "Thank you so much for the help again."  
The drive was far less interesting. Vas was humming some song, Kara was busy with the road and Cat was being Cat, complaining about her driving. After dropping off Ms. Grant, she contacted her team.

"Hey Alex. Is the tracker working?"

"Yeah. It is deactivated for now, so that she doesn't get suspicious. It should automatically reactivate on 10th."

"Okay. I am calling it a day then. See you tomorrow."

"Good night."

She hated using someone like this, but it was necessary. 10th was going to be a big day and they needed all the advantage they could get. Something was telling her that she was going to need all her strength. But for now, her body was telling her to rest, and she agreed to it.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.  
> Stay safe and thanks for reading!


	11. Betrayed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. Hope you all are staying safe out there.  
> This chapter is going to shift the status quo significantly for the next chapters. So I hope it is up to the mark.
> 
> Also for some readers, the last chapter did not show up on timeline. If you have any issues with this one, please tell.
> 
> Now, on to the chapter.

CHAPTER 11: BETRAYED

January 8th, ??? AM

Everywhere she looked, heavy droplets of rain were falling. It had been a while since National City had gotten a thunderstorm like this. She looked at her watch and was surprised to see 4PM reflecting back. The weather made it more akin to nighttime. There was this nagging feeling in the back of her mind, that she was not supposed to be here, but she ignored it for the time being.

Taking a step back from looking outside, she observed her surroundings. People were rushing here and there yelling about some story of the year. Huh. So, she was in CatCo. Some of the people were rushing towards where Cat Grant's office, others were glued to the television screen. Wondering what was important enough that people had actively stooped working to look at it, she stepped towards the mass of people. 

And that's where things started to get bizarre. She expected to see some news about some new attacks or something. However, to her surprise, the headline read, 'Two buildings destroyed in the fight between two aliens.' The anchors were going on about something, but her attention was caught by the scenes on the screen. A woman in white mask was brawling with a blonde-haired woman. 

Before she could make sense of what was going on, the floor below her feet gave away like some sort of liquid and she found herself being teleported somewhere else. Once everything was solid again, she looked around to see that she was standing in the wreckage of a demolished skyscraper. The heavy rain was still around signifying that this was happening simultaneously to what she had seen in CatCo. Inspecting the fallen buildings, her eyes darted towards the distance, where she could see something glowing. The thing was moving towards her with really fast velocity. 

Confused, she took a few steps forward to see what was going on. It became clear just after two seconds that it was not a thing, but a living breathing person. By the time she took her next breath, someone with a yellow aura around them quickly flew past her. She realized just a moment later that the individual was Kara. 

"KARA?" she screamed at the figure who punched someone else so hard that the shockwave made her fall to the ground.

The next thing she knew, she was screaming at the top of her lungs in her room. A thin layer of sweat was dribbling down her forehead. The clock beside her was showing 8 AM. Just a few seconds later, someone knocked on her door, making her flinch.

"You okay in there Nia?" Lena's voice came through.

"Y-yes..." she replied in a hoarse voice, which even she had trouble figuring out. Clearing her throat, she made her voice somewhat normal, "Yeah. I will be out in two." 

"All right. I am in the kitchen if you want to talk."

She quietly got off her bed and walked towards her closet. What was that dream? It had been a while since she had seen something so vivid. On top of that, it made her feel like she was physically present there, which was a new one for her. Usually, her dreams were from a third person perspective, where she knew that she could not be hurt. 

Changing into her pajamas, she trudged outside her room. Lena was working in the kitchen, and Kara was nowhere to be seen. "Is Kara not here?" she asked entering the room.

"No. She had some work early. Made up bullshit if you ask me. The real reason is that she is scared of me right now. But my anger is totally justified in this case. Can you believe her? She went to fight Livewire when she didn't have any powers, without any backup or communication with the team. Her whole plan was that the building "might" stop Livewire's electro kinesis. They did not even check it beforehand. What if it didn't work?" she muttered angrily while making something. 

"Drink up. Herbal tea helps after bad dreams." Lena passed her a cup. "It was a bad dream, right?"

"Umm... yeah. Can I ask something?" she asked drinking slowly from the cup.

"Shoot."

"Can Kara... glow?" Her question was met by a trademarked eyebrow raise from Lena, who looked confused at the inquiry. Maybe she should have paraphrased it better.

"She is not a firefly if that's what you are asking for. Kryptonians have a bunch of powers but being a walking light source is not one of them. At least as far as I know. Still have not woken up next to a lamp." Lena replied while cutting some vegetables.

"No, not like that. I mean like an aura. A yellow one to be exact. Can she turn all glowy and flashy like that?" she tried to rephrase her question.

"Probably not. To have something like that happen she would need to use all her powe-" Lena stopped the chopping midway through her sentence. She turned around to look at her. "That was not an ordinary dream. You saw the future, didn't you?" she concluded. 

"I-I think so. I mean it could be wron-"

"The date. What was the date or day? Anything to tell when this is going to happen." For the first time since she had known her, Nia saw genuine worry in Lena's eyes. She thought of everything in her dream which could help her determine when this took place. 

"10th." she spoke suddenly, remembering the date displayed in the news coverage. "There was this huge thunderstorm, and she was fighting the lady she is after, Virt-Victory, whatever her name is."

"That's day after tomorrow. Ok, ok. We can stop this. It should be automatically changing as you told me about it." Lena picked up a pen and paper kept nearby and thrusted them in her hand. "Write down everything you remember. Doesn't matter how small or big it is."

"Okay... Is it bad, what I saw?"

"Pretty much. When she first arrived on Earth, no one knew about her problem. She did not use her powers much as she had trouble controlling them. However, as she got older, the issues became too much to simply ignore. So, she came to me and asked for help. That was also when she told me she was an alien. I already knew at that point, but still." Lena said reminiscing the past.

"Long story short, yes. Her using that level of powers is very bad. That would pretty much...." she didn't finish the sentence, but Nia knew what came next. "I swear to Rao if that idiot self-sacrifices or does some shit like that, I would drag her life back to her body before killing her myself."

"I would try my best." Nia tried to calm her a bit down. "Give me like an hour."

"Sure. I am going to call the dolt." Lena nodded and moved out of the kitchen. Nia looked at the paper and started thinking about what she saw. This was her opportunity to save someone for once. She was going to try her hardest to not fluff this chance.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January 8th, 1PM

  
' _You are going to die.'_  
 _'Nice knowing you.'_  
' _What are you thinking? This is obviously a trap._ '

Kara shushed the voices as she sauntered towards Lena's class. She had messed up bad. Well, it was not her fault that her phone's battery gave out. She usually charges it in the morning but forgot today as she was out of home pretty early. When Hope told her the message Lena left for her, she knew she was doomed. "Meet me at Uni. 1PM" That's all it said. The voices were scared out of their life. Rehearsing her 'I am sorry speech', she reached her destination.

"And that is why we avoid using jumper cables in correlation with the Ultrasonic sensors." Lena spoke to the class. "You can read more on it from the reference books. If no one has any questions, then you are free to go." Kara patiently waited for the students to move out. ' _You can still run._ ' After a few minutes, when everyone had left the class, Lena spotted her and moved towards her.

"I brought lunch." She held up her hands. "All your favorites. There are so many vegetables in this that I cannot even name them. And I will eat it too."

Lena gave her a small smile at her antics and surprisingly, hugged her. "Oh!" Kara was flabbergasted for a moment before wrapping her arms around her. "I thought you would be angry." she mumbled.

"I am. But we need to talk about something. Come on, I know a good place."

Kara followed her quietly through the similar looking hallways. ' _Well, that went quite differently._ ' Kara's voices were still quite shocked about how the things went. ' _Maybe she just does not want to scream at you in the public._ ' 

After a few minutes, Lena led her to a much quieter part of the campus. They were standing in front of a few trees and there were only one or two students in sight. Lena sat in the shade of a giant tree, before patting the space beside her. Kara sat down and looked at the fluttering leaves above her head.

"This is a nice place." she told her.

"Yeah. I found it during my first week here. Needed a place to get away when stuff became a bit hectic, or I just needed to think things through."

Kara listened to her while taking the food out. She had not eaten properly since the morning and her stomach seemed like it was cursing at her. She quickly set up the plate and offered one to Lena. Not even veggies were going to stop her from demolishing this meal. 

' _Aren't you forgetting something?_ ' Lena's voice told her in her mind. Kara looked for anything leftover in the bag but found nothing. Confused she thought, ' _Did I forget something in the car?_ '

' _No idiot. You were going to apologize to her_.' Lena's voice shot back at her. 

"Hey, I am sorry for running in the morning. It's just... I want this stupid case to get over as soon as possible. It's getting on my nerves. I promise I will make up for it."

"Kara..."

"It is mainly because of Virtuous being Kryptonian. You know I have been wondering if someone else made it out of there too. Never thought I would be fighting against them. But that in no way or terms makes my behavior right. I should have told you everything earlier. I am sorry." she finished her rambling.

"I know darling. I am not mad. We can have a long discussion on your tendency to come up with foolish plans later. The main topic right now is that Nia saw something today."

Kara stopped chewing hearing this. "Future?"

"Yeah. 10th."

"Let me guess. Something bad is going to happen."

Lena pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and gave it to her. Kara opened it up and read through it. Her expressions changed the more she read the paper. "That is why I called you."

"This..." Kara was struck speechless. "I won't... I never. This has to be wrong. Maybe she saw something else and doesn't remember it."

"Hey! Don't get panicked. There is no guarantee that it would happen exactly like this. Future is always in motion. We might be changing it by having this conversation right now. Besides, do you really think you can get away from me this easily?" Lena said jokingly.

Joke. Lena never jokes. At least not until she was lying or hiding something. That was all Kara needed to understand that she was putting up a brave face for her. She decided at that exact moment that she needed to get her act together. She had promised herself during her rehabilitation last year that she was never going to let Lena suffer ever again because of her. It was time to honor that promise.

"Nah. I am going to haunt you your entire life." she said with a smile on her face before sobering up. "You don't have to worry. I am not going to ever use that much power."

"I know that. But you are thinking it wrong here. Instead of questioning why were you like that in the dream, your question should be what could make you go all out like that? There are not a lot of things which could make you go kamikaze."

' _You_.' That was the first thing which came in Kara's mind. As if reading her mind, Lena told her, "Think other than me."

What other things were important to her? There were several situations in which she would not hesitate to use her powers. Kara thought about the important people in her life. Kal was not with them, Lois was with Kal. Ma Kent was safe in Smallville. "Lucy and Alex." She told Lena. "Probably Sam and Ruby too."

"Hmm. I will make sure everyone is safe and sound, so you don't have anything to worry about. What else?"

"This is hurting my brain. I mean what if Virtuous does not give me any choice? If she holds a children's hospital as hostage, I don't think I would be able to live with myself if I didn't give it my all." 

Lena gave her a sympathetic look. "I know this is not a good idea, but I have to start somewhere. Something is going to happen to cause this. Maybe it would be people, maybe it would be the circumstances, I don't know. What I do know is that I am going to try my best to change it."

Kara nodded at her words. "I have a plan too. This is happening on 10th. What if I catch Virtuous earlier?”

"And how are you going to do that?" Lena raised her eyebrows at her.

"Livewire told me that she was going to blow up the city's central power grid on 10th. But in the dream, there was still electricity everywhere. That means I was able to stop her and then the fight happened. But what if, I know this is going to sound insane, just hear me out, what if I blow it up myself on 9th."

"What? How would that help us?"

"It would certainly annoy her. From what I have seen of her, she acts extremely childlike. There would definitely be tantrum and I can tell Winn to track anything out of normal. We could get lucky and figure out where she is hiding."

"That is longer shot than Lex becoming good again. Don't do anything abrupt like that."

"It was a thought. You got anything better?"

"Actually, I do. Kryptonite."

"Aaannndddd you lost me." Kara told her confused.

"You know exactly what I am talking about. Use kryptonite on Virtuous whenever she shows her ugly mask around. I can create enough that we can be sure she will not be flying around for a while. And we can use Hope to deliver it, probably through some kind of trap. You won't even to touch or stay close to it."

"I don't know..." Kara replied skeptically. "I am not exactly fan of using kryptonite." Her hand involuntarily went to her spine. Lena quickly understood her trouble and held her hand.

"I know darling. I won't even consider something like this, but this is your life we are talking about. If you believe that you won't be able to live with yourself if you weren't able to save someone again, how do you think I feel? I... I am not letting you go."

Kara gazed at her wife's stressed face. She was practically begging her to let her do this. "Okay." she whispered softly. "If you think you can do it this quickly, then go for it."  
Lena gave her a warm side hug. "We will make it through this." she encouraged both of them. "I have to go to work now. Let’s talk through this in the evening, okay?"

They shared a slow lingering kiss before parting their ways. Kara was silent on her drive back. Why wasn't she feeling different? She was just told that she could die in two days’ time, but all she was thinking at the time was about how she would stop Virtuous. Even her wife was more stressed than her. Minds do work in weird ways. 

When she entered the DEO again, she saw Winn confusedly looking at his computer. "What happened now?" she asked. He looked up at her nervously. "Wha? What makes you think that? Everything is completely fine and dandy."

"The way you said fine and dandy. On top of that you are sweating, there is unfinished food on your table and one of your Superman figurines is on the floor. You yelled at me last week when I touched it. Want me to go on or are you going to tell we what is wrong? What did you do?"

Winn looked here and there nervously. "The tracker on Livewire went live today. It should not have until tomorrow. I am sure I did everything right. The problematic thing is it is constantly showing only one position. A supposedly abandoned house near the warehouse you fought Livewire in."

"That is not good. Not good at all." Kara murmured.

"You don't have to tell me."

"WINN! Turn on the news. There is something big going on." Vasquez's voice boomed as she rushed in the hub. Suddenly, a big crowd was gathered around the giant screen. Kara took a step back and sat on her desk, legs dangling idly.

"What is happening?" J'onn asked her, appearing out of nowhere.

"Vas shouted to open the news. Apparently, something big is happening. I don't know much." she replied wondering what had happened.

A few seconds later, her question was answered. An anchor spoke, "We just have received another video from Children of Liberty. We are still not sure of its authenticity, but our initial probing does confirm that it is from the same source as the last viral video. Viewer discretion is highly advised as we would be showing the video soon. I repeat, viewer discretion is highly advised."

"Hmm." Kara hummed still not moving from her place. ' _Something fishy is going on_.' her voices told her. ' _What's the point to publish another of these right now?_ '

"You seem troubled." J'onn commented.

"Just trying to understand their motive Sir. I don't get it. Why release it now? They have this giant thing on 10th. This would only attract more attention to them. This doesn't make sense until... until-" A huge epiphany struck her suddenly.

"Until what?"

"Until they want to put the attention on someone else. Probably on someone who is in their way." she spoke slowly. Call it her sixth sense, or her gut feeling, but she knew that this was not going to end well for her. Before she could make all of her thoughts known, the video started playing.

"Greetings to fellow humans. Today I have something to show you. This video will open your eyes about these aliens deceive us. They sneak in our society and then backstab us. Look at this woman's crimes and judge if she deserves to live among us."

His speech was followed up by a static before the video started again. "Please don't believe it." Kara whispered it to J'onn.

"Wha-?"

Kara's picture was on the video with her name written under it. The next few seconds showed her address and relationships before displaying a date. December 12th. On the screen was a grainy CCTV footage. The time was 11:15PM. Nothing happened for same time. As everyone started whispering, Kara saw herself pop up on the screen. 

The video her was dragging someone. She went some distance before stopping and looking around. Confirming whatever she was doing, she snapped the poor guy's neck before flying away. This clip was followed by the name of the person who was murdered. There was hush silence throughout the hub. The video did not stop there. The next thing was the date on which she and Alex first met Maggie. In the video, she could be seen shooting the guy whose murder she herself investigated. This was again followed by the name and a picture.

"How long will we let these snakes bite us? Are we not supposed to do anything? I implore the authorities to take their decisions quickly, otherwise we would make it for them. Humanity needs a strong leadership right now. And if these cowards in power cannot do it, we would take matter in our hands." Agent Liberty was back in front of the screen.

The final few seconds showed the picture of her and Lena in front of their home. Of all the things that happened, this was the one which messed her up the most. If they had to go for her, then they were allowed to go by all meas. But what was the reason for dragging Lee in? She had suffered enough in her life already.

As the video got over, everyone trained their sights on her. The situation made her laugh awkwardly. "What? You guys are really going to believe that?"

No one spoke. The tension in the room could not be any higher. She could see a few people's hands moving towards their guns. ' _18 here. A few on the way out. Could get messy._ ' Her mind offered. "Everyone stay calm. Kara, where were you during the time which were shown here? Is there any proof that you were not present there?"

"I-I don't know. This is almost a month old. Who knows where I was back then? Lee can vouch for me if you want to know."

"Someone other than your wife."

"Sir, this video is definitely doctored. Believe me. I have trouble taking an animal's life. Do you really think I could do something like this and move on with my life?"

"The circumstances in which this video is released is a bit suspicious. But I implore you to kindly co-operate and don't make this any hard on yourself. We need time to figure out if this video is valid or not."

"With all due respect Sir, we don't have enough time. You know what is happening on 10th. I need to-"

"You are not doing anything right now Captain Zor-el. Vasquez, escort her to the prison. We need to sort out this mess." He said sternly.

"Just wait, please. Is no one going to look for Lena? She might be in trouble right now. Just make sure that she is fine. I will do what you say." she silently raised her hand in surrender.

As the tension was slowly dissipating, someone took out their gun and shot at her. A sudden pain seared into her right shoulder as she looked down to see red passing through her shirt. ' _Let go Kar. They don't care about Lee. You need to get out of here._ ' The voices advised.

For once in her life, she completely agreed to it. The enormous pain was making her brain muddled. She could hear the room dissolving into chaos. "Who in their right mind shot her? Did you not see the video?" someone screamed.

' _3...._ '  
"EVERYONE CALM YOURSELF." J'onn yelled. "Someone get Alex here right now. Winn get on the video. Whoever shot her step forward right this instant."

' _2......_ '  
"I thought she was going to attack. She started raising her hands suddenly and I got scared." A guy stepped forward quivering.

' _1...._ '  
"Vasquez escort him out of here. I will deal with him later. Everyone get back to work."

' _Hope. Start the watch_.' she whispered and stepped in the fray. Before anyone could respond to her sudden movement, she stole a gun from the nearby guard, put it into non-lethal mode and shot at least 5 of them. She would have gotten more but her shoulder made her miss half of her shots.

"Wha-"

Not paying any mind to what was happening around her, she tore through the DEO agents like paper. Just a few seconds later, most of them were lying on the floor unconscious and the remaining had run away. She could see Winn quivering behind his table. It brought her out of her battle daze. 

"Hope find out where Lena is." she told her AI and walked towards Winn. "Which one of this makes the place go out of lockdown?" she asked him.

"T-The r-red b-button. It needs a password."

"And?"

"I-I am not giving you it."

"Your wife has just made her way out of the university ma'am. Heading to safe house A. She has told me to tell that she is going to the first contingency plan." Hope responded to her.

"Thanks. Got it." she thanked before focusing her attention back to Winn. "Password Winn. I need to get out of here."

"N-No."

She sighed. "Winn. Please. Lee is in danger right now; I need to go. I will send you proof later that it is not me in the video. Just back me on this please."

"You are not going anywhere Kara." J'onn stepped in front of her and started transforming. In a blink of her, he was in the form of a Green Martian. "I request you to step down right now. Miss Luthor will be brought to safety later."

"A green Martian. Huh. I had my doubts." she replied. "So, you did read Lena's mind on Christmas Eve right? When your eyes went all red. You know that I did not do anything."

"You have nothing to back your words right now Kara. You also need medical attention. Please stand down. This would be resolved in just days with proper co-operation. I promise that we will make sure your wife is safe." He said standing his ground.

"We don't have days sir. I might be dying in a couple. Please just let me go. I don't want to hurt you." The pain was really starting to overwhelm her. She was not sure that she would be able to fight a Green Martian right now. She needed sunlight to heal, but the whole DEO was in lockdown mode. While she was considering her options, she heard cocking of a gun behind her.

"Alex no!" J'onn screamed as she turned around to see Alex shoot right at her. She expected the bullet to bounce back, but somehow it went right through her stomach. She immediately went on her knees.

"Why did you do that?" J’onn rushed towards her.

"She hurt everyone and she was not stepping down. A dude just told me that we had a shoot on sight order. What was I supposed to do?" Alex defended herself.

"She was thinking. There was no need to resort to violence. Help me get her to medbay." He ordered her.

"H-How? Kry.. kryptonite?" Kara clenched her teeth to bear the pain, but she was losing consciousness fast. 

"I am sorry Kara." J'onn spoke picking her up. "I hope you can forgive us."

Knowing that she won't be able to keep her eyes open for long, she uttered. "P-Please help Lee." It was the last thing she was able to say before darkness engulfed her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Sorry for the cliffhanger ending.
> 
> Stay safe out there.  
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.  
> Thanks for reading.


	12. Calm before the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. As the title suggests, this is more of a cool off chapter.  
> Next two are going to be really big ones as I am almost reaching halfway in the story.
> 
> Also sorry in advance to all who thought Kara would be getting some relief in this chapter. Plus no Lena in this one. The next whole chapter is around her so I had to let others take the spotlight.  
> Enjoy!!

CHAPTER 12: Calm Before the Storm

  
January 8th, 10PM

"You sure you want another one?" The bartender asked Alex who was busy drinking like it was the last day on Earth.

"J-Just keep it coming." Alex replied slurring her words.

She had been in the bar for about an hour now. And all she had done was drink. It had been a while since she had touched a drink, but today was a day she allowed herself to drown in alcohol. This week in a whole was turning out to be a strong contender for one of her worst weeks ever. How did everything even lead here? 

The thing which was making her feel more guilty than ever was a rather simple message in her phone. ' _Is she all right?_ ' Lena had asked more than two hours ago. She had never replied to it. What was she even supposed to say? ' _I am sorry I shot your wife._ ' Something told her that it would not go well with Lena.

Alex laughed at her luck while downing another shot. However, as she went for another refill, someone caught her hand. "Fuck off! Leave me alone." she mumbled angrily as she looked at the face of the person who stopped her.

"Sorry Danvers. But not today." Maggie's voice commented. "Don't give her any more for today. She has had enough." Maggie further told the bartender. 

"Go away Sawyer. Let me be." She tried to move away but fell as soon as she left the stool. Fortunately for Alex, Maggie intercepted and prevented her face from meeting the ground. She dragged her to a nearby booth and made her sit there. 

"Take it easy. You have had one too many. I ca-"

"How did you e-even find me?" Alex interjected in between. "I did not tell anyone that I would be here."

"I guessed. Considering today's circumstances, it was easy to figure out that you would end up here. I tried calling you, but your phone has been switched off since last hour." Maggie informed.

"Huh? Oh yeah. Sober me is s- smar... smart. Knew that I would try to call or write to Lena. So, I left it in my car. Pretty sss..mart." 

Maggie said nothing in reply. She looked at Alex's state with sorry eyes and went to talk with the bartender. She returned after a few moments and helped Alex outside. "Where we going? Why don't you just let me drink? You d-don't even care about me. J... Just leave me alone like that day."

"You are staying with me tonight. You are in no condition to be alone. And if I didn't care, then I would have left you in there. Look, I am not going to argue with you when you do not know what you are saying. Just give me your car keys." 

Alex grumbled a few words but gave her the keys in the end. Maggie made her sit in the passenger seat and fastened her seatbelts. "Tell me if you have to throw up." She advised before starting the car.

She did not throw up. For some reason drunk Alex was proud of herself for that feat. She also concluded that time was sped up for her as Maggie was dragging her out of the car barely a minute later. They could not have reached their destination this quickly. ' _Maybe Maggie knows magic_.' Her mind was trying to figure out this mystery while she was laid down on a couch. 

"Sleep. Don't think too much." Maggie's voice filled her ears and that was the last thing she remembered as sleep overtook her.

January 9th, 8PM

Headache. That was the first thing Alex registered as she opened her eyes. Every cell of her body was aching. It had been a while since she had woken up to such a hangover. Looking around, she found herself in an unknown apartment. Before she could figure out where she was, Maggie suddenly showed up behind her with a glass of water and some pills. 

"Drink this. It will help." She pushed them in Alex's hand. 

"Why are you so loud?" Alex groaned as she drank the water. "Where am I?"

"My home. Do you remember anything about last night, or should I jog your mind?" Maggie offered.

"I remember. Not everything, but enough to fill in the blanks. Thanks for taking care of me. I... I should have been more cautious."

"Never mind that. What's done is in the past." Maggie said. There was awkwardness hanging in the air as the conversation was not flowing at all. Alex hated it. They used to talk about nothing for hours. Now they couldn't talk about their own feelings. Maybe she was cursed, like her mother always told her. Somehow she always found a way to mess things up, no mater how difficult it might be.

"Soo... I should be going. I need to get to the DEO. Kara.... I need to make sure she is all right." Alex spoke gathering her shoes and overcoat.

"About her... did she really do all that? I mean, considering how drunk you were, I can assume that something bad happened. But she also saved my life like two times, so I don't know." Maggie asked her.

Alex took a deep sigh. "I don't know. She might have played us all, or we all are being played by someone else. Right now, the evidence is stacked against her. Plus, she assaulted like 20 of our guys before I..." She trailed off at the end.

"Anyway, the more I think the more I believe that she didn't do it. And I have to go to find if I am right." Alex finished and unlocked her phone. There were a couple of messages. Reading them made her heart drop. 

Lena (21:45) - ' _I know you don't want to give away the investigation but please. Simple yes or no? Please. Is she all right? I can't access the servers right now._ '

There was no follow up to this. Lena probably gave up on hoping that she would reply. Her headache was already killing her, and this did not soothe the matters. In fact, it made things worse. 

"What happened?" Maggie asked concerned by her reaction.

"Nothing." She took her stuff and moved towards the door.

"I know this is not the right time, but we should talk next time you are free. It is regarding... you know what it is about. So... just ring me up whenever you are out of this mess." Maggie told her.

"Sure. Thanks again." Alex gave a small smile. "Stay safe out there, especially tomorrow. I don't like where everything is leading."

Maggie gave her a short nod. Alex opened the door and walked to the parking. On her way there, she called Winn. "How are things there?" she asked as soon as Winn picked up.

"Where are you? It's a circus. No one knows what is happening. And Kara is still not conscious. At least she is stable. Lucy and J'onn have been in a meeting for hours now."

"I'll be there in 20." Alex accelerated the car in hopes of arriving at the DEO as soon as possible.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January 9th, ???  
Kara was having a weird dream. It was one of those in which she knew she was dreaming but could not do anything to end it. She was in the middle of a street with cars all around her. The way cars were phasing through her body was the biggest giveaway that this was a dream. She wandered here and there for some time, hoping to wake up, but she never did. 

' _It will hurt too much. You are safe here._ ' A voice simply told her when she wondered why she was not waking up. Oh! So, she was in her head. It had been a while since she was here. 

"Let me wake up. I need to know what is happening." She pleaded.

A few things happened after this. The scenery around her changed from a busy street to a quite park. The weather changed from scorching heat to a pleasant breeze and most importantly, she saw Lena sitting on a nearby bench. 

"That's a cheap move." Kara complained while sitting beside the figment of Lena. "Why are you guys using Lee's face?" She asked the voices.

"Because you don't really listen to us. The things up there are not good. Do you remember exactly what happened last time we were conscious?" The imaginary Lena asked.

"No... I know someone shot me with kryptonite if that is what you are asking. I think it was Alex. Anyway, I need to wake up. We need to stop Virtuous and we don't have much time left. Plus, Lena might need help with her plan."

"You don't have to go. You can be safe here and avoid so much pain. It is not your duty to help the humans so much when in return you get nothing but betrayals and lifelong scars."

"Nah... I have to help. Sure, humans are weird, but they also gave me a home and purpose in life. I may not be able to do a lot right now, but I must try. Also, some idiot out there is branding me as a villain. This is the worst time to hide." 

The imaginary Lena gave her a sad smile. "It will hurt like hell when you open your eyes. Don't trust anyone. It is not going to be easy. Just don't give up." She said vaguely before fading from her eyesight. 

"You all are weirdly vague." Kara mumbled. Her surroundings changed again, and she found herself standing in nothing. Everything was pitch black and far in the distance, she could see a light glowing. It was quite far and by the looks of it, she had no other option but to walk. 

"Could have dropped me right in front it. But no. We gotta make her walk. Real funny guys. Real funny. Nitwits, the whole lot." She grumbled and her complaint was met with giggling from the voices. 

After walking the distance, she saw that the light was coming from a slightly opened door. She looked here and there for some more information, but it was like looking it a blank painting. There was nothing there to interpret. Kara carefully put her hand on the door and opened it completely before stepping through.

The next thing she noticed was immense pain. It was so overwhelming that her body might as well be on fire. The voice wasn't kidding when she warned her about the agony. She willed her eyes to open and found herself in a sleek modern nursing room. She was wearing surgery clothes. Observing the room closer, it seemed more and more like a small prison.

Kara struggled to sit up in her bed when she was hit by a fit of coughs. Since when she can get human viruses. Before her brain wondered about this, a loud alarm started blaring. It wasn't loud per se, but her senses were too delicate at the moment to handle it. She clutched her hands over her ears to try to reduce the noise. 

Barely a minute later, Lucy and J'onn barged in the room. "Someone turn off the noise." Kara heard J'onn ordering someone. 

Lucy on the other hand, remained completely silent. She wordlessly dragged a chair besides Kara's bed and sat down. J'onn did the same after talking to a guard. 

"Why the long faces?" Kara quipped. 

"Stop. Just stop acting like everything is fine." Lucy snapped. 

"Well, someone once told me that if nothing good is happening, then fake everything until it turns good. I am just following that advice." Kara replied smiling.

"I said that idiot." Lucy still seemed angry. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. "Look, I am not here to fight. I just wanted to ask why? Why did you not tell me anything about you being...? We have been friends for 10 years. You were my first good friend for god's sake. Why?"

"You would not like the answer." Kara looked down at her hands. They were feeling weird for some reason. Probably the side effects of getting shot. 

"Try me." 

"I was going to tell you after the whole leg thing. However, your dad..." She trailed off mid-sentence.

"What about my dad?" Lucy narrowed her eyes at her.

"Nothing. I decided not to tell you. It was my choice. I don't trust you. Never did. Simple as that. I have only told this secret to 1 person in my whole life. Everyone else who knows it figured it out on their own. You should have too." Kara lied.

"You are still fucking lying. You know what, I am done with this. Fuck you. Enjoy rotting in prison." Lucy stormed out of the room. 

Kara wanted to stop her, tell her everything, but she did not. Lucy was angry right now. There was no guarantee that she would listen to anything. Tears filled her eyes and threatened to spill out seeing her best friend hurting because of her, but she reeled them in. J'onn was still in the room looking at her with concern.

"Why did you lie? You could have told her about General Lane." He asked calmly.

"And destroy her whole life. He is her idol. What do you think would happen when she gets to know that the person, she loves the most is the reason for most of her life problems? Lois never visits Lucy because he told her to. I couldn't tell her anything because he threatened to reveal Kal's identity. If she knew everything, it would crush her. I can't do that to her."

"Even if you have to bear all the hatred?"

"Isn't that what friendship is about?" Kara simply asked back.

J'onn opened his mouth to say something but no words came out of his mouth. He gave her a ' _I understand_ ' look and moved onto a different topic. "I have been told that the video could be doctored. Winn is busy on it. For now, I request you to stay calm and let us do our job."

"You are saying it as if I can do a lot right now. News flash, everything hurts. Badly." Kara gave a wry smile.

"I did not finish telling you everything." He paused for a rather long time. "Um... We need your help for tomorrow. I have been running different scenarios in my mind and I see no other chance of us succeeding unless you help us."

Kara sighed listening this. "You know what, till yesterday I would have said yes. Don't know about it anymore." 

"That is expected. I implore you to at least give it some thought. If you are proven innocent in the case and want to pursue your career somewhere else, then you will have my full support."

"I will think on it, but no promises."

J'onn nodded and left the room. Once alone, the things which just happened hit her like a truck. Lucy hated her. One of her oldest friends now hated the sight of her. The unshed tears came rolling down her eyes, as she remembered the times both of them hanged out, pranking each other and being annoying. ' _Another one lost. How many can you take?_ ' She laid down on her bed and silently cried.

A little while later, someone else tip-toed into the room. It took Kara quite long to figure out that she was not alone anymore. She wiped her tears and pushed through the pain to sit upright again. Alex was standing against the wall, looking at her with an expression which she could not place.

"Hello." Kara waved her hand. "Are you here to shout at me too?"

"Nah. I had to check up on you. Who do you think patched you up?"

"Well, you were the one to put the bullets there, so I think it was your job to fix me." She sassed but her words lacked any bite.

"You are mad at me.” Alex stated. “How are you not biting my head off? I have been thinking about this moment since yesterday, and this is not going according to what I thought. I prepared for a shouting contest or something like that."

"Oh I want to say so many things. I am very much mad at you. Just do not have the strength to scream right now. Also why am I coughing? Shouldn’t the kryptonite be out of my system." Kara launched into another coughing fit just after the question. 

"J'onn told me to build something which can contain a Kryptonian. This room is the first version of it. The walls are lined with traces of kryptonite. Nothing lethal, but enough to make sure that you don’t go to town on us." Alex replied and moved towards Kara to check her vitals.

"Great." Kara whispered. 

"So... I am sorry. I made a mistake." Alex spoke softly after finishing her checkup.

"Mistake? Mistake is something like messing up on a report or something. Not putting a bullet in me. How did you not shoot J'onn who was all greeny right in front of me?" Kara shot back struggling to sit upright.

"H-He told me about him being an alien. A while ago. Look, I-I messed up okay. I just want another chance. Please?" 

"Another chance is something you earn Alex, not something you ask for. I cannot just go around giving you second chance when you have done nothing to regain my trust. Just... leave me alone for now. I want to rest. Everything hurts anyway." She said to a guilt-ridden Alex.

"C-can I ask something?" Alex questioned softly. "You did not do any of those things, right?"

"What do you think?"

"You are hiding something. I saw the recordings. You told J'onn that you do not remember where you were, which is a straight lie, since you told and showed me numerous times that you never forget anything."

Kara gave her a wry smile. "You are getting so good. And I would have told you exactly what I was doing at those times if I trusted you farther than I can throw. So, for now, I will say, nice theory and everything, but I cannot remember where I was. Must have... what is the phrase? Yeah. Must have slipped my mind. Now get lost." She turned herself so that she was facing her anymore.

Alex exited the room with heavy steps. Kara felt a bit bad, but she ignored that feeling. She closed her eyes and thought of something that could help ease her suffering a bit. Before she could properly relax, Vasquez barged in the room.

"Get dressed. You need to go for interrogation." She said throwing clothes at her.

Kara tried to keep her balance as she put her feet on the ground, but immediately had to sit back on the bed as the nausea and pain prevented her from walking. "Can I have a cane or something? My injury seems to be in full form today." She asked Vas, who nodded and went to find something for her. Seeing that no one was close by, she screamed in her pillow due to the overwhelming pain.

5 minutes later, she was slowly hobbling behind Susan to the interrogation room. They were flanked by two guards who kept looking at her suspiciously, fingers on the trigger of their guns. 

Kara saw other people staying away from her path. Those who were near her acted like they were the busiest person in the world. As soon as she reached the hub, everyone gawked at her. It made her feel uncomfortable. She was not used to the spotlight, especially in a scandalous way. 

Someone shouted behind her, "Lock her up. What is she doing outside?" A few others gave her dirty looks. Kara tried her best to ignore them. She kept walking, keeping her head high. She had done no wrong, she was not going to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they got to her.

She was panting by the time they reached their destination. However, her fatigue was overtaken by curiosity as she saw who the scene right outside the door. 

"Her trial and punishment would be given by the military. She was a part of us." A man in full army regalia was going off at a calm J'onn.

"And I keep telling you, that gives you no authority to detain her. DEO was built for these purposes. How do you even plan on containing her? DEO has every facility required to hold a Kryptonian." J'onn replied calmly.

"But I have orders from General Lane-"

"Who has no claim over how the DEO works. Until you have an order from the actual chain of command, I suggest you leave."

Oh! So, it was Lucy's dad. She was wondering how long it would take for him to rear his head out. What a first-class opportunist! No wonder Lois hates him. 

"What is going on here? This is not a clown show. Everyone back to work." Lucy arrived at the scene and snapped at the nearby watchers before focusing on J'onn. "What is the problem?"

"This alien..." The man butted in, displeasure written on his face as he said alien, "is to be transported to the nearest army base but your director here is hindering the process."

"You can't. I was just on the phone with the Secretary of State. He has given DEO the authority to act on this matter. Plus, how would you transfer her? Do you have Kryptonite vans or something? We cannot let her take a foot of this facility." Lucy said deciding the matter. "Vasquez, carry on with the proceedings. Corporal, I request you to leave the premise."

Lucy walked away after leaving everyone shell shocked after. Kara was sure that she would side with her dad, as was the Corporal, considering his reaction. J'onn was as cool as ever. ' _Don't think too much Kar. She had orders from above. She didn't help because you are her friend.'_ Her thoughts were interrupted when someone poked Kara's shoulder towards the door. "Go in the room." Vasquez told her.

The interrogation room was as uncomfortable as ever. There was a giant one-way mirror, a table and two chairs, and Vasquez made her sit in on one of them, before handcuffing her to the table. She took a sigh of relief as her back was killing her while she was standing.

"This seems unnecessary." Kara pointed to the handcuffs. "I can just break it."

"Have to do it. Tradition." Vasquez gave her a small smile and moved out of the room.

Kara settled in her chair. It seemed weird, to be on the other side of an interrogation. She patiently waited for someone to come in, and after a while, an unknown individual walked in. He walked straight towards the chair opposite her and sat down. There was a file in his hand, from which he revealed three photos.

"Do you know why you are here?" He asked.

"I am accused of double homicide and attacking several government agents on duty." She replied honestly.

"This interrogation is going to be a bit different than you are used to, considering you are used to all this. However, I recommend being cooperative."

"Do you recognize any of these individuals?" He moved the photos of the deceased forward.

"No, I don't. Except for this one. I solved his murder case. Never seen his face other than that day." She replied. 

The man nodded at her answer. "Are you a kryptonian? With access to all of the powers the species possesses."

"Yeah b-"

"And do you have a twin or someone else who looks exactly like you? Because if not, the evidence is pretty stacked against you." He continued. 

' _I want to punch him. Why are you not using your powers? We could be out of here before anyone figures out what is happening._ ' A voice recommended but Kara really did not want to use her powers. She had not recovered from yesterday's usage, was shot twice, and was barely standing up. As she was wondering her reply to his question, Alex opened the doors.

"Davies, out now."

The man moved out of the room, leaving Kara alone in the room. Her brain was getting tired extremely fast. She missed Lena. The worst part was that she was not even sure that Lee was fine. She could be going to fight Virtuous alone while she was stuck here. This day was already proving to be too much for her, and she was unconscious for the half of it. She sat in the room for a solid half hour before Vasquez returned.

"You need to come to the hub." She told Kara unlocking her cuffs.

"What happened?"

"Nothing good." She replied vaguely.

Kara took her cane and hobbled towards the hub. There was a massive crowd gathered there. However, when the people noticed her, they quickly distanced themselves from her, making it easier for her to get to the epicenter.

"What is going on?" She asked to J'onn with a tired voice. He was looking at the computer, along with Winn, Alex, Lucy and a lot of people. 

"We got a message before half of the systems went down. Unknown source. Something in Kryptonian, we need you to translate it." J'onn told showing a message which was indeed in her native language.

It read, ' _Everything is ready. Signal me when you want out. Hope is everywhere._ ' Kara did not need to guess that it was from Lena. A huge grin appeared on her face on knowing that Lena was safe and sound. 

"What is it?" Winn asked mystified by her sudden happiness.

"Nothing much. It is from Virtuous. She is taunting me by saying, "How is prison life suiting you?" Kinda funny if you think about it. She is the first person who asked how I was feeling the whole day." Kara lied.

"Are you sure it is from her?"

"Yup."

"How did they even get in? Winn better our cybersecurity. This kind of scenes should not happen. Are we sure that they did not get in our systems?" J'onn asked.

“Yes sir. They just left the message and moved away. The firewalls I have put up are pretty unbreakable.”

“Hmm, yet somehow they were able to access our networks. Doesn't really match up. Make them better. Vasquez escort Kara back to her room. Her interrogation will be continued a while later.” The director ordered and moved to his office.

"Why the break in interrogation?" Kara asked confusedly to Vas, who was leading her through the hallways.

"Can't tell you ma'am." Susan said before realizing what she did. "Damn. It's gonna take a while to wear off."

"It's fine. You will do good in my place. This place was confining me anyway. I think I need to go outside the box for Virtuous. DEO is..... yeah. I don't want to be here anymore." Kara told her.

"Umm... where will you even go? The whole world knows who you are. It's not like you can hide." Susan asked confused by her wording.

"Can't tell you all my secrets. If you think Lena has not prepared for every single scenario to ever exist, then you are a fool. Anyway, I need to rest. I can't stand for long." Kara smiled sweetly and entered her room, locking herself away from the outside world.

"Now what is this signal."  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all liked it.  
> Again this was more of seṭ-up for the big events upcoming so it might seem a bit drab. I will try my best to make the next few worth it.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the support on this story!!  
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.


	13. Breakout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone.
> 
> If you read the title, you already know what is happening. Tried to do something different and used Lena's POV throughout, even in fight scenes. Next chap is going to be more fighting :)
> 
> Sorry for not replying to the comments on the last chapter. February and March are really busy months for me. But I always read all the comments and try to better myself.
> 
> Enjoy!!

CHAPTER 13: BREAKOUT

January 9, 11 PM  
There was a steady drizzle of rain going on, making the weather chiller than usual. The clouds had rolled in a few hours ago and engulfed the night sky. Lena held on her overcoat a bit tighter as the cold breeze shivered her to the bones. She was waiting in a building right outside the DEO's base for Kara's signal. Everything was set up already for the rescue and all she could right now was wait. 

Nia was alongside with her. Lena had opposed to her tagging along, but she was adamant. When asked about the reason, Nia said something about helping Kara back for all she had done for her. Honestly, Lena had not listened to much. She was busy setting everything up. 

In case anything went wrong, Nia was supposed to initiate the backup plan, which was kind of unnecessary as Lena had faith that her plan would work without a hitch. Unlike Kara, who made up everything on the fly, she had actually thought of the various possibilities and formulated her strategy according to it. There were very scarce chances of things going wrong. 

While she waited for Kara's signal, she had been working on finding a way to debunk the video. It startled her as it seemed very much real. She expected it to be altered or doctored as there was no way it could be true. She was with Kara during one of the time frames shown in the footage. Despite her knowing the truth, there was no way to prove that Kara was innocent in this. Even if this went to court, her testimony would lose all its value as soon as her name would come up. Well... that was the concern for later. She needed to break her out first. 

"Why has she not sent the signal? Are you sure your message reached her?" Nia wondered.

"Yes." Lena replied. "She knows the facility best so she is the one who can recognize the best time for the plan. If it were up to me alone, the whole thing would be blown up by now."

"Yeah. You are not really a patient person whenever Kara is concerned." Nia chuckled. "So, what after we break her out? The DEO is not going to let her walk away without retaliating."

"One thing at a time. We will burn that bridge when we get to it."

Lena checked the various cameras and devices she had set up around the building to check for any trouble. Hope was already looking at all of them, but she needed something to do. All this sitting around really was not her thing. As she finished it up, Hope called out, "The signal is up ma'am."

The signal which she had set up was very simple yet effective. All Kara had to do was find an intercom and say that she was ready. Considering she was already kept in a room with intercom, this task was just figuring out the clue, " _Hope is everywhere_." 

Lena quickly pulled up the DEO server and initiated her plan. When she had sent the message, she had also set up a lot of ' _surprises_ '. It was time to unveil them. She took control of the cameras first, making sure that they only show a loop, rather than what was happening in reality. The next thing she did was ensuring that the building could not go into lockdown, no matter what anyone tried. And finally, she rang a false alarm to distract everyone away from Kara. 

As everyone inside rushed to the hub to know what the alarm was for, she opened Kara's door and started following her wife’s actions. Kara did not look very good, she was hobbling around, clearly in pain. But that did not stop her from knocking out the guard outside her room in just a few strikes. She got dressed in the guard's uniform. It seemed to a bit clunky, but she also did not seem out of place. Once she had put the unconscious body inside her room, Lena locked the door. 

Kara slowly walked in one direction. Lena had found two possible routes for the escape and both were quite risky. The only difference was that one was through the hub and the other was not. Kara had chosen the hub route. She limped from cover to cover making sure not to rely too much on her disguise.

"Hope do we have ears?" Lena asked the AI.

"Yes ma'am."

"Patch me to the hub. I need to know what is happening there." 

If confused chaos was a word, then the scene in the hub would be its perfect example. Most of the people who were gathered there were bewildered as to what the alarm was for, others were busy listening to Winn talk.

"I don't know how it got triggered sir. There is no emergency, everything is fine on the cams. No one is attacking us. There is no reason for it to be activated." He explained to the director.

Lena smiled at everyone's confusion. Just as she thought this was going very well, Hope spoke up, "Umm... ma'am. I... You should look at this." 

She had never heard her AI stutter. Wondering what could cause her to do it, she looked at the screen which Hope had pulled up. There was Kara on it. It took her a second to figure out what Hope was pointing to. This was not Kara, because the real one was making her way towards the hub.

"What? How?" Lena asked to herself stunned as the fake Kara went to the room in which Kara was previously.

"Hope, record this. This is proof of her innocence." She told the AI and watched the events unfold, still a bit shocked at the turn of events. "Is there any way I can contact Kara? The real one." 

"Cameras are all we have. If you use any intercom right now there is a chance that the DEO agents may be alerted of the fact that we are trespassing in the servers."

She ransacked her brain for any kind of solution to this. Suddenly, a idea came to her mind. "Morse. Translate everything into Morse and use the light beneath the cameras to send her the following message. "There is someone with your face looking for you. Be careful.""

"On it."

Lena hoped that Kara would pay a little close attention to the cameras. There was no guarantee that she would even think of checking the lights for any kind of clue. At the same time, she was Kara. She paid attention to things that others could never dream of.

Her anxiety kept growing by each passing second Kara ignored the cameras. "Come on. Look at it." Her prayers were answered as Kara paused after a while. She tilted her head trying to figure out her message. Kara's face was one of pure confusion. While she tried to understand it, the fake Kara was closing upon her at an alarming rate. 

"Hope tell her to go. The other one is uncomfortably close." 

Kara nodded at the camera and started running towards the hub. "What is she thinking?" Lena wondered out loud as Kara swiftly made her way to the hub.

Unfortunately, the fake Kara was a smart one too. While Kara was reading the Morse code, she seemed to be listening to something. The next moment she was out of the camera frame appearing somewhere else, as if teleporting.

"Great... She has powers too." Nia commented looking the screens with her.

Both Kara came face to face with each other one hallway away from the hub. There were three guards around who looked on confused at the faces of two Kara. Before the real one could do anything, fake Kara knocked them out. 

"This is bad. I am going on. If I ask you for help, you must initialize the backup plan." Lena ordered Nia while she picked up the various gadgets and gazebos she had been preparing in case of a rainy day.

"Are you sure? How will you fight her? Kara seems to be getting her ass handed to her." Nia asked and indeed, Kara was getting pummeled in the fight which had broken out.

"I will be fine." This was all she said before running towards the DEO building.

"Hope, keep informing me what is happening." 

"Nothing good, ma'am. Your wife is fighting without using any powers, there are very small chances of her winning. I have allowed Winn Schott to regain control of the cameras so that he could see both Kara's fighting at once."

"Good work."

Lena reached the front gate where three guards were sitting idly, talking to each other. She pulled a few small spheres from her pocket and rolled them towards the guards. A couple of seconds later, it got the attention of one of the three. "What are these?" He picked one of it and showed it to others. 

Unbeknownst to them, they were pocket flashbangs. Lena pressed a button and all of them were flashed. "Wha-" Before anyone could understand what is happening, Lena briskly moved out of her hiding spot and knocked everyone out. 

"The director is currently seeing the fight through the cameras. A small unit of DEO agents is preparing to intercept the brawl." Hope informed.

Lena opened a board in a nearby wall, to short the gate open. Only the inner doors could be controlled by Hope. All the outer ones were purely mechanical. She busted through the gate, only to run into more DEO people.

"Hold up. Who are you?" One asked.

"None of your business." Lena said as she gracefully tackled one, picked his baton up and used it to knock another guy and throwing it at a third one. The last two tried to stop her, but she used her electric gloves and shocked them.

"Hope, directions."

"Right, left and third left to a second right. It will lead right to hub."

"Thanks." Lena broke into a run as Hope continued her commentary on what was happening inside.

"Kara is barely holding up now. She needs assistance as soon as possible. The good news is that now almost the whole DEO has seen her fight with her clone, so it would be pretty easy to prove that she is innocent in the homicide cases. May I suggest something ma'am?"

"Sure."

"There was absolutely no reason for her clone to attack this facility right now. What if we are missing something?"

"Like what?" Lena asked back.

"I... I don't know. Just a thought to consider." Hope replied with uncertainty in her voice. The AI had been upgrading her from the day she was first booted up. Lena was proud of it as emotions were not something she had programmed in, but somehow it had start to apply more and more in conversations. 

"You can work on it Hope. It's always good to make sure that there is no page left unturned." Lena suggested.

After a few minutes, she found herself standing in an empty hub. Everyone had already left due to fight being in a rather close proximity. "Where?" She asked Hope.

"Left hallway."

The whole hallway was completely destroyed. It was as if someone had brought a truck in a small space. A few hurt guards were slowly moving towards hub, while others were helping the injured ones. Lena heard sounds of fighting coming from nearby and walked in the direction. Kara was still up and fighting, although barely, and there was a green alien alongside her. However, despite both of them working together, they were getting destroyed. 

Kara got punched in the stomach but before she could get hit again, the green alien distracted the assailant away. Lena quickly moved beside her wife. "Hey! Are you all right?" She asked.

Kara looked at her with a small smile. "Never better." She coughed up some blood. "I hit pretty hard, don't I?"

"Ready to get out of here?" Lena asked while pulling Kara back up to her feet.

"Nah. I need to stop her first." Kara replied.

"No, you don't. You are in no shape to fight. And you don't owe these people anything. Especially after how they have treated you. I am going to mess up Alex the next time I see her. How dare she?" She tried to coerce Kara into leaving.

"But I have to try. Can't leave everyone here to die."

Lena cupped Kara's face in her hands. "They tried to kill you, It would only be karma. And can I ask how are you planning to do stop the fake you? These people have Kryptonite bullets, yet they could not lay a finger on her. You have a broken shoulder, and two bullet holes in you. There is no way you are walking out the fight."

Kara looked at her as if she had answered her own question. Lena went over everything she said in the last 10 seconds before her mind clicked. "They will crucify me. And I don't even know if she is Kryptonian." She hit Kara in the head.

"No, they won't. And yes, she is. No other species looks like human and has heat vis. Green dude is J'onn by the way."

"Even if your observations are correct, this is a government agency Kar. No way I can get away by doing this in their backyard, in front of like 10 witnesses. We should just leave while we can."

"Please. I will eat vegetables for a year. Please please. Think of everyone you could save right here."

Lena desperately wanted to say no. This was a bad idea. But the look Kara was giving was nothing short of a sad puppy. She could just punch her and make her leave. It was not like she could do much, given her condition right now. But something inside her did not want to leave everyone in this facility in the hands of fate. She blamed Kara for it. "I hate you."

"No you don't." Kara replied with a huge smile on her face. "I'll distract."

"Sit your ass down. You are not moving an inch, or I will drop this stupid heroism and drag you out myself." She forcefully made Kara sit in a corner before checking the stuff she brought with her. "All right. Stay here. Hope, keep the package ready."

She went into the general direction in which the green guy took the fake Kara. It was too easy to follow the path of destruction left behind. She soon found them locked in an intense battle. She waited for an opening in cover as their fight went on. J'onn was really taking a beating. The fake Kara seemed to very very angry, something you don't really expect to see from any version of Kara. Observing closely, she also saw that she had red vein popping up on her skin. That seemed to be interesting. 

"Ready when you are ma'am." Hope replied after a couple of minutes.

"Great." She whispered and walked out of cover, directly at the other Kara. "Yo! Wanna fight someone your own league?" Lena shouted to gain the attention.

Kara's clone angrily threw J'onn away, who she was keeping in a chokehold, and charged at her. Lena was barely able to swerve out of the line. In her peripherals, she saw a drone flying around, waiting for her order. She needed to make sure that it was on the perfect time.

"That all you got? I thought you were much faster." She taunted.

The other Kara looked at her confused on hearing her voice. She hesitated a bit. The red veins went away, but the next second they were back, and she was again in attack mode. This time she went much faster. 

Lena anticipated this and shouted, "Now." The drone shot a barrage of bullets in the room. When the bullets had stopped flying finally, Kara's clone was still standing up holding up some of her bullets.

"Did you really think that usual bullets will harm me? My my. What a world, in which Lena Luthor is not the smartest in the room." The fake Kara replied smugly. The similarity in her and Kara’s was straight up uncanny and creepy.

"You are an idiot." Lena replied disinterested as suddenly every bullet exploded, making the room fill up with a green gas. "Still want to fight?"

Kara's clone started coughing loudly as her lungs filled with more and more Kryptonite. The bullets were not enough to knock her out, as she was still moving around, albeit much slowly and awkwardly. Lena decided to put her out of her misery and rushed her with her gloves on highest voltage possible. It was a short fight, as the other fell on her knees seconds later and shocked into unconsciousness by Lena. The red veins were slowly fading away, confusing Lena even more.

"Who the fuck are you?" She wondered out loud as J'onn entered the room, this time in human form, along with a couple of others.

"H-how?" Vasquez asked astonished by Lena just standing there.

J'onn was the first to step forward. "I appreciate your help here Ms. Luthor, but we can take it from here. And you need to hand over all the kryptonite you have. It is against the law to hold onto it, but I will make a one-time exception."

"Why? What makes you better to use it than me? At least I don't go shooting around innocents with it when I feel like it." 

"That was a mis-"

"I don't give a fuck about what it was. You are lucky that she is all right, otherwise every single one of you would be six feet under. A whole ass agency dedicated to defending aliens, can't even make the simplest of decisions." Lena replied angrily.

"Enough of this. I am not giving you a choice here. It could be catastrophic if it fell into wrong hands. You need to hand over all of it otherwise we will have to take action according to the protocols."

"I fail to see how that is my problem. From my point of view my hands are the safest. Also, do you really think you can stop me?" Lena pointed to the unconscious Kara. She was bluffing here. She had no way of defeating a whole unit, but she needed to stall for time for her escape plan to work. So, she kept talking, "Tell me, if my last name wasn't Luthor, which it is already not, would you still follow the same protocols?"

"This has nothing to do with your name. It is about a civilian having access to something which is highly illegal and could be used as a weapon of mass destruction. We all remember what happened with your bro-"

"He is not my brother." Lena cut in between and sighed. "You know what, you all are not worth fighting to." She slowly pulled out her phone and messaged Nia, signaling for help. Everyone had their guns trained her, observing her every movement minutely. "What? Going to shoot me for using my phone?" She sassed.

"N-"

A huge explosion occurred at that exact moment, which caused everyone to look the other way. Lena quickly used this time to bring up everything she had left and threw it on the ground. The whole place was filled with smoke and flashes. She used earplugs and closed her eyes to avoid the flashbangs and swiftly moved out of the room, carrying the unconscious fake Kara alongside her.

She returned the same way she had arrived, finding Kara patiently waiting for her nearby. "You ok?" Kara asked looking between her and the clone.

"Yeah. Can you help a bit? She is heavy." 

"I think I can fly for a bit. Want me to carry you somewhere? I can come back for her later." Kara offered.

"No. I need to find out who she is. That may answer a lot of our questions." Lena replied. "Help me if you can and follow me. We don't have much time."

"Okay." Kara lugged the other arm of her clone over her shoulder and they both started moving. It was clear that Kara was in no condition to help her, as she kept wincing again and again. "Just keep it up Kar. Almost there." She tried to encourage her. 

"Okie." 

Lena led them to a dead end and told Kara to stand behind. She pulled out a small gun which wasn't really a gun. She used it to paint a small door on the wall and waited as the substance quickly heated up and blew a small portion of the wall. They both slowly made their way outside. The rain had picked up quite considerably and it was pouring.

"I have a car nearby." She told Kara and progressed towards the said car. They reached the car and laid the fake Kara in the backseat. 

"I think I figured out why she attacked the DEO." Hope's voice lit up the car's speakers as Lena took the driver seat.

"Why?" Kara asked.

"Did anyone wonder how she was able to just walk in? She just walked in. And how the Agents never tried to get into their servers. It's because-"

"they have a spy inside." Kara finished the sentence. "Could also be spies."

"Yes. And the aforementioned spy must have told them that ma'am was in a weakened state in the DEO. Her plan was most likely to capture you and kill as many agents as possible, making you enemy number 1. While the world searched for you, they could easily carry out their plans as you could only do so much without appearing in the public. It was a lucky coincidence that you decided to signal just a few moments before. You would be kidnapped or dead if you did not signal right then."

"Is she really you?" Lena asked. "I mean are you sure that it is not some kind of technology or something to make her look like you?"

"She was mirroring my fighting style, punch to punch. No one can do that. I just... how? I swear to Rao that I don't remember having a twin."

"She is not a twin, more of a clone. Twins have their own memory; she seems to have yours." Lena replied and met Nia at the rendezvous point. 

"Hey Kara, and evil Kara." Nia waved getting in the car. "You could have given me some time before blowing the whole setup." She complained to Lena.

"You had enough."

She drove them to the outskirts of the town towards the forest, where they changed the cars. There was a small cabin a few miles in the jungle, and it was their safe house for the time being. Reaching the cabin, Lena dragged evil Kara with Nia's help to a small room. "Can you use your powers to make sure that she stays unconscious? I need to check on Kara, then I will setup the kryptonite in the room." She asked Nia.

"Yeah, sure." Nia quickly agreed to it. She had been complaining a bit lately about being left on the sidelines, so she swiftly grabbed the opportunity to prove herself on this.  
Lena moved back into the living room where Kara was unsuccessfully trying to take off her shoes. She walked and sat beside her. "Let me help." 

"I can do..." Kara stopped midway as she saw Lena giving her the look. "Okay."

Lena kissed her forehead gently and helped in taking off the shoes and armor. Considering how much black and blue was on Kara's skin, her body might be considered some kind of modern art. Lena winced subconsciously seeing the bruises. "Does it hurt bad?" She asked Kara who was busy regulating her breathing, holding on Lena's hand tightly.

"Nah. I am used to it. It's the voices who are causing the problem. Stupid idiots all of them, fiving me a headache."

"You should get some sleep, tomorrow doesn't seem to be better than today." Lena gently massaged her temple.

"I don't think I can." Kara was not saying it, but Lena could see that she was deeply disturbed fighting herself. It is not every day when someone having your face beats the shit out of you. Why does all this stuff happen around them? Did they piss of the universe or something?

"What was up with the red veins? Did you see them too while fighting?" Lena wondered.

"Yeah. That's when the voices got all messed up. It felt like I was becoming more and more angry the longer I was close to her. Some form of airborne drug or something?" Kara theorized.

"I can run some tests later."

Lena lit up the fireplace to generate some warmth in the room, while Kara turned on the small television. "The storm is predicted to be one of the largest the city has seen in years. It is highly advised to all individuals to stay in home for two days, until there is some form of emergency. Some areas may also have trouble with electricity, so we suggest preparing yourself in advance." 

"Great! No sunlight." Kara complained to no one in particular.

"You look bad." Nia commented to Kara arriving in the room. 

Kara chuckled a bit. "Sure, skincare queen. Sure. Thanks for the assist by the way."

"I did not do anything." Nia replied confused.

"But you were there. Sometimes that is all that matters. I won't blame you if you want out. You have a whole life, no need to waste it helping me." Kara said sincerely.

Nia thought for a second before replying, "Well, you could have said no too when I asked for help. Heck you had no reason to teach me about my powers, or even let me stay with you guys. You both were there for me when I needed the most, how can you expect me to not be there for you two now?"

Kara nodded after a while. "It's your choice to be here. You are still not fighting anything, though." 

"Go and rest darling. Otherwise, you are not going to be fighting anything either." Lena tried to shoo her towards the only bedroom in the place. 

"I will. I promise. Just not now." Kara replied tiredly as she absent-mindedly flicked through the channels.

"How are we on DEO's front Hope?" Lena asked.

"They don't know where you are. The director has decided to put you both on the backburner for now. They are putting all resources for tomorrow's preparation. Regarding tomorrow, I have everything which Ms. Kara asked ready."

"Thanks Hope. That is a big help." Kara thanked her weakly. 

They all sat there for a while, no one speaking anything. After some time, Kara's head fell onto Lena's shoulder as the exhaustion of the day finally caught up to her. She picked her up gently with Nia's help and laid her on bed and locked the room. 

"All right Nia. Make yourself useful. Time to work. I am not done with the DEO yet, but it can wait a bit. They are going to pay for putting her through all this shit again." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the chapter.
> 
> So, clone or alternate universe Kara? I will leave it up to you all to figure this one out for the time being.
> 
> As always, comments and Kudos are always appreciated.  
> Thank you for reading.


	14. Who are You?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Another chapter.  
> Hope you all enjoy this.

Chapter 14 : Who are You?

  
January 10, 9 AM  
Kara had a dreadful sleep. Her nightmare was plagued with angry cacophony of sounds, her dying by the hands of someone having the same face as her, and the usual blowing up of her planet. One would think that she would have gotten used to it, since it has been appearing in the nightmares since she landed on Earth, but she had no such luck. Every single time she sees the destruction of her home, her heart breaks all over again. 

She woke up sweating and breathing heavily. The pain from yesterday's brawl had not subsided yet and now she had to contend with a massive headache too. ' _Great start of the day._ ' A voice sassed. She took her time getting up. The new surroundings startled her a bit. It took her brain a while to recollect that she was not at her home. Slowly opening the door, she limped out of the room.

Lena was working on something in the living room, while Nia was napping on the couch. Kara inaudibly walked near Lena and sat on the floor beside her. "Good morning." She rasped in a croaked voice.

"Hey darlin'. How was your sleep?" Lena turned to look at her.

"Bad." 

"The usual?"

Kara nodded wordlessly. Both of them were no stranger to nightmares. Whenever either of them had a bad night, the other would abandon her own sleep and listen without any complaints. They had spent countless nights like this, and Kara always appreciated the steadfast support.

"It will get better in a while. Want to talk about it?" Lena asked hugging her sideways.

"Nah." Kara rested her head on her wife's shoulder and closed her eyes, comfortable in her embrace. 

"Okay then. Want to know a fun fact? This is the first time both of us are unemployed at the same time. Weird, right? Never thought I would see the day." Lena said lightheartedly.

"Huh?" She asked befuddled about the fact.

"The university fired me. I got the mail this morning. Something about their organization not employing someone who has active connection to a known criminal. Well, fuck them. I am gonna sue them when this is over." 

Kara felt guilty about this. She knew how much Lena loved her job. Talking about what she taught in the class was one of the few times Kara had seen Lena genuinely excited about something. And now it was gone because of her. "I- I am sorry. It is because of me, isn't it? I messed up again. It seems to be the only thing that I am good for." She often wondered why Lena ever stuck with her. She certainly did not deserve it.

As if reading her mind, Lena tenderly lifted Kara's head to meet her eyes. "Don't go there. I can spend the whole day telling you why you deserve the world. And this is not your fault. We have survived much worse scenarios. We will get through this too. Never ever think that you are not worth it."

"B-but how? The world knows I am not human. Everyone will hate me, like Lucy. Nothing is going to be the same."

"Do you see the girl snoring over there? She knows about you and is still there. Sure, some people would leave, but think about the others who will stand by you. And I don’t know about anyone else, but as long as I am here, you will never be alone." Lena gently wiped off the lone tear falling down Kara's cheeks before capturing her lips in a delicate kiss. 

"Are you hungry?" Lena asked after breaking the kiss.

"Yeah. And I can cook. You get some rest." Kara replied.

Lena chuckled lightly. "Really? Do 10 pushups right now and I'll let you."

"Uh...... How does 5 sound?" She tried negotiating. She could do it, she was sure of it, but that would also make sure that she would not be moving any muscle for a few hours.

"Thought so. Just take it easy for now sweetie. Our guest should be waking up soon." Lena told and walked towards the small kitchen.

Between the pain, headache and nightmares, Kara had completely forgotten that her look-alike was in the next room. She quickly got up to her feet and hobbled along with Lena. "Did she do anything?" She enquired.

"No. I think Nia put her in too deep of a sleep. Nothing from her. Hope is monitoring her, so if she made any movements, we would know."

Kara nodded to herself and started thinking of the different questions she wanted the answer of. The whole same face situation was way too fishy for her liking. She patiently sat down again to conserve energy and started meditating to streamline her thought process. The rain was still pouring outside, with the occasional thunderclaps, so it took her a while to focus. 

Sometime later, Nia stirred from her sleep and Kara got distracted by the heavenly smell of breakfast. She calmly opened her eyes to return back to reality. "Oh hey. How you doing today?" Nia asked rubbing sleep away from her eyes. "Man! This couch is terrible for my back. The floor would have been better."

Kara laughed lightly at Nia's antics. However, before she could say something, Hope's voice came from the nearby speakers. "The clone is waking up ma'am. Two minutes max."

"Thanks Hope." Kara thanked the AI who blinked the lights in the room to express her happiness. "Lee, you coming?"

"Yeah. Give me a sec." Lena picked a syringe from the nearby table. "In case of an emergency." She explained.

Kara nodded. ' _You can do it; she just has your face. She is not you. You got this._ ' She hyped herself and entered the room in which her look-alike was kept, Lena and Nia on her trails. The other her was sleeping on a cot on the floor. Apart from her, the room was completely empty. Lena had probably removed everything in the vicinity late last night. 

She wiped dust of the floor and sat down cross-legged facing her clone. Nia followed her in doing the same, but Lena gave both one look and went back outside. She loudly dragged a chair from the living room as if making a point and sat down on it. 

It was weird for Kara, seeing herself unconscious. The other Kara stirred and slowly woke up. Her expressions changed from lazy to alert in an instant as soon as she saw the three of them sitting there. She swiftly sat up and looked at everyone with suspicion and fear in her eyes. She was a carbon copy of Kara, except for the scar Kara had above her eyebrow. 

"Hello!" Kara began. "Who are you? And why were you trying to kill me?" She asked without any anger in her voice. Lena looked at her perplexed, most likely about her method of asking questions. She shook her head slightly and gave a small smile to tell her that she had this one.

The other Kara gave no reply. Instead, she observed her hands and the room, probably looking for some kind of traps. ' _She seems afraid._ ' One of the voices observed. "T-ten" The fake Kara answered after a while.

"Hmm?"

"M- my name. T-ten." She pointed towards her chest. 

"That is not a name." Nia commented.

"It's all I have. They did not give me a name." Seeing that they were just sitting and talking, Ten slowly pulled her feet to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "I don't want to kill you, but they will hurt me if I don’t follow the orders."

"Who is they?" Lena leaned forward in her chair. "Are we talking about Children of Liberty?"

"M-maybe. I don't know much." It was clear she was terrified of something. Her mannerisms were very closed off and she did not seem to be violent at all. Kara had a hard time believing that this was the same woman who fought her so ferociously yesterday.

"You don't need to be afraid. We are not here to hurt you." Kara tried to soothe her a little bit. Ten subtly glanced at Lena who was still looking absolutely serious. ' _Oh well, can't blame her. Lee is scary._ ' A voice gave her opinion.

"Well, not hurt you anymore. Right Lee?" Kara continued.

"Riiight." Lena drawled.

"They said the same things. Each time was the last they were going to hurt me." Ten spoke so softly that everyone had to strain their ears. "The pain will go away if I do what they say. It never did. And w-when I asked questions, they used kryptonite. The red one is the worst."

"Wait... red kryptonite?" Lena asked puzzled by the statement.

"Y-yeah. There are different types of Kryptonite. I hate the red one. It makes me so angry, no matter how much I control myself. Whenever I did not do what they told, they injected it in me and made me do all the..." she trailed off.

Kara had a small idea what she was going to say. However, instead of following her line of thought, she changed the topic. "You said you were Ten?" Seeing her nod, Kara continued, "Then where are the first nine?"

"All gone. They want to create a kryptonian killing machine, without your... imperfections. I was the first one who was somewhat close to what they want. The others were not lucky. I guess I am outdated now too."

"But how? The cloning technology is not advanced enough right now. We can't clone a human properly, forget about changing an alien's DNA." Lena wondered.

"Well.... The technology is not enough on Earth. Krypton on the other hand...." Kara spoke taking her time. "Cloning was a part of the society. It evolved into much more, like the birthing matrix over a long course of time. And I am not the only Kryptonian here, we have pretty much established that."

"Virtuous?" Nia asked.

"Yup." Kara popped the 'p'. "Why does she need an army of me though? She would work just fine for the test subject."

"She doesn't want to be replaced." Ten spoke up. "I-I tried to listen to her ramblings whenever possible. She once told me that I-I was ex-expendable. I was only good because I had your brain, and t-they will replace me when a better version arrives."

"How are you better than Kara? Do you have extra abilities or something?" Lena asked.

"I don't have her imperfections." Ten repeated her earlier sentence.

"It's pretty obvious, isn't it?" Kara began seeing Lena getting frustrated by the lack of a clear answer. "Look at her, she is still good enough for a fight. If I used that many powers, I would be bedridden for days. She does not have any restrictions on how much or long she uses the powers. Plus, she does not have a broken spine. Seems pretty good upgrade to me."

"Can we talk outside?" Lena suddenly whispered in Kara's ears, out of nowhere.

"Sure."

The three of them made their way outside the room. Ten watched them go with confusion written all over her face, but she herself stayed still. She looked deep in thought, and Kara wondered if she looked the same every time she worked on a case. 

"Do you what this means?" Lena asked.

"What?" Nia and Kara said at the same time.

"If she is telling the truth, which I think she is, then it could help us a lot. First of all, it proves my theory that you were not shot by green kryptonite that day. I mean I knew it since then, but I never knew there were types. Green kryptonite does not leave permanent injuries, at least not the synthetic ones. You are always able to heal under the Sun." 

"You are losing me very fast." Nia replied.

"It all checks out. If there are different colors which have different effect, then it is highly probable that those bullets were made up of some kind of mixture of green and other color kryptonite. Now I just have to find what type and we could potentially heal your legs. And her blood could also prove a cure for your cell decay." Lena continued without stopping for a breath.

Nia looked flabbergasted. Kara on the other hand was able to understand the reason behind her wife's sudden excitement. If Ten did not have her disease, then they could reverse-engineer something for her. However, this plan had an issue.

"I don't think she would be much excited for being experimented on." Kara commented. "And I don't blame her. She has gone through a lot already."

"You could ask her?" Lena looked at the door.

"Just... just wait a minute. How are you guys taking this so chill? She tried to kill you yesterday. And now we are giving out deals? How do we know we are not being scammed?" Nia raised her voice a bit.

"Hope is monitoring her vitals. No change in heartbeat, blood pressure or anything like that during the conversation. And look at her behavior, she is afraid of me. If she is lying, then we deserve to get swindled." Lena explained.

They bickered for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, Kara left them there and silently went back to the room. Ten looked up at her uninterested and went back to staring at the wall in front of her. "Just do it quick." She said without any emotions in her voice.

"What?" 

"You all are going to kill me, right? Virtuous told me what will happen if I was ever found by you. Please make it painless. That's all I ask." 

"No, I am not. You have my memories. Why would I ever think that I would commit a murder in cold blood?" Kara asked offended.

"I-I don't know. Everything is so jumbled in my brain. I can't figure out what is true and what is not. They tried to wipe my mind clean, multiple times, but never fully succeeded. Now I have these echoes of memories, which I think are yours. I can't place anything because I never lived them. So, yeah. I don't know what to think." 

_'See, even she is suffering because of you. You can't better a single person's life._ ' The angry voices rallied against her, while the others were speaking in her defense. It was complete chaos in her mind at the moment. 

"I am sorry." Kara apologized sincerely. Ten looked at her like she had lost all her marbles, but Kara carried on. "I know this is confusing, and you are scared. But you do not have to be. You are not a captive here. Life has not been kind to you, the last thing we would do is take more from you." 

Ten just stared in Kara's eyes, looking for some manner of lie. "You don't believe me, do you?" Kara asked when she gave no reply. "I don't blame you. It is always difficult when your life has been nothing but a series of lies. I just hope that one day you could trust someone. You can leave as soon as you are well enough. But if you decided to stick around for a while, I will be in the living room. Choose what you think is better for you. I am not going to persuade you on either one."

Kara had spoken her mind, so she let Ten sit and dwell in her thoughts. Back in the living room, Nia and Lena had settled their dispute and were now keenly watching the small television. "What's goin' on?" Kara picked up her breakfast and sat in between them. 

"Mass breakout. Children of Liberty's doing." Lena explained. Everyone watched the news coverage in silence. More than 100 prisoners had broken out across the three prison in the City. The authorities were preparing for a massive lockdown. The news which interested her most was that the Mayor was having an emergency meeting at 3pm with his staff. After around 15 minutes, the anchors started repeating themselves. 

"Nia? What was the time in your dream?" She enquired.

"Umm... around 4. Why?"

"I think I figured out where Virtuous is going to be. Lee, we need to set up shop near the city council." Kara told Lena.

"You are not winning this." Kara's voice spoke from behind her. Confused, she turned around to see Ten looking at the news. "This plan is not a whimsical one made in a few days. They have been working towards this for months. No matter what you do, you will not come out on top."

"This is going to take some time to figure out." Nia murmured pointing out the similar voice Kara and Ten had. 

"You decided to stay?" Kara wondered.

"Not yet. I know that I do not want to go back to that hell. And I do not want to live a life looking over my shoulders. Everything else, I am not sure of."

"What do you mean we are not winning this?" This time Lena asked.

"Even if you stop Virtuous, which you can't in your current state, she won't go down without a fight. It would lead to a lot of property damage and maybe some losses to human life too. What do you think Children of Liberty would do about this? It would give them a chance to put themselves in public without any fear as they would have people’s support."

"If you cannot stop Virtuous, well...... Either way, the whole city would be under their mercy by tonight. And do not forget, you are still the enemy number one. You cannot take a step without alerting every authority possible. It is their game now; we are just puppets." Ten finished ominously.

"Hmm. You are right. Doesn't mean I am not going to try though." Kara had a wry smile on her face. 

"How are you still smiling? You could die. Hell, you would have died yesterday if Lena and the Martian did not step in time." Ten asked perplexed.

"What good is living if I run away from all my responsibilities? I may not make it, but if my death makes the world better for others, I will gladly take it." Lena got up and hit Kara hard on her head at her words. 

"Don't talk like that."

"Sorry."

While everyone wandered in their thoughts, Ten looked at the rain outside. She seemed to be enjoying the nature. Kara felt bad, knowing that this might be one of the first times she was experiencing rain by herself. 

"We need to move. A lot of people are coming here." Ten suddenly spoke up breaking the silence.

"Wha-"

"I picked the noises up. Cars coming here. We need to go. I don't want to go back. They will hurt me." Ten was straight up panicking now. 

"Hope?" Lena asked the AI.

"Nothing in the perimeter yet ma'am. Everything is clear at the moment." The AI replied quickly.

"Gives us a few minutes for planning. How in the world did they figure out we are here?" Kara wondered. Her question was answered when Ten enquired, "Did you remove my tracker?" 

"You don't have any tracker. I checked when we brought you in." Lena clarified.

"No no no. It is one of those timed ones. You can't find it if you don't look at the right time. I thought you were supposed to be smart or something. How did you let me in here without checking fod it properly?" 

"Hey! If you can't see, I am working with salvages right now. You are lucky we have a house to fall back to. If not for me, we would be drenching in the rain somewhere." Lena defended herself.

"Everyone calm down." Kara finally raised her voice a bit. "We still have a little time. Lee, work on removing the tracker, Nia help them. I will work with Hope and try to delay them as much as possible. How far are they?" She asked Ten.

"They would be here in 15 minutes. I don't want to go back." She repeated again.

"No one is taking you anywhere. Lee, get on it. Hope, keep me informed on the progress." Kara went to the kitchen and picked up a painkiller. It was recommended that only one is enough for humans. So, she promptly chugged 5-7 along with water, picked up various lengths of rope and wore a raincoat to go out in the rain. 

"10 mins." She told Lena who was already working on the tracker before going outside the front door.

Kara had a plan originating in her mind. She just needed to be in the right place at the right time. The weather was so bad for traversing the terrain that it could ultimately work in her favor. She picked up her pace and jogged in the rain. Reaching a fork in the muddy road, she briskly surveyed the area around her.

' _This could work. Be careful though, they are going to have kryptonite bullets._ ' Lena's voice advised in her head. She rolled her sleeves and got to work at once. Her plan was to set up an ambush. The road had two paths, only one of which led to the safehouse. The other led to it too, but it was way too complicated. No one without prior knowledge of the area could figure out the path if they went on that road. 

Her first objective was to ensure that the cars stay far away from everyone else. Kara used a miniscule amount of her powers and punched a tree on the side of road. It fell after a few strikes. Moving on, she did the same with 4 others, completely blocking the muddy path. "How far Hope?"

"Nothing yet ma'am. They might be having trouble due to the thunderstorm." As if wanting to justify Hope's point, a loud thunderclap rattled the atmosphere. The downpour seemed to be getting worse by each passing second. At this rate, everyone was going to have trouble detecting what was happening around them.

Kara took the time to assemble a few makeshift traps. Nothing too interesting, just a few holes and rope related stuff. Convinced by her effort, she took a second to guarantee that everything was going to work. Perching on a branch of a nearby tree, Kara patiently waited for the things to commence. 

"Three SUV's spotted ma'am. A minute away from here at their current pace." Hope informed a couple of minutes later.

"How's Lee doing?"

"She needs a few more minutes."

"All right. Tell Nia to prep our car. Might need a quick getaway." Kara notified before going radio silence. She took a few deep breaths to focus as the cars came in her view.

As expected, the cars stopped right in front of the wreckage. Around 15 individuals jumped out of the vehicles and started a discussion among them. "Why did we get stuck with this job? I am going to have mud everywhere. I can't even see anything properly. Does everyone really need to go? It's just 4 of them."

"Shut up." A guy who looked like their leader stepped forward. "2 of those 4 are kryptonians. We are short-staffed if anything. Now listen up, we are going to spilt into three teams. Stay in contact and light up the place on my word."

As everyone split up, Kara jumped down the tree she was sitting on. Taking advantage of everyone's obscure vision due to the weather, she tip-toed behind one of the three teams. It had 4 people including the leader. She noiselessly followed them for a while and waited for the other teams to fall for her traps. 

Soon enough, a loud shriek pierced her ears. Smiling to herself, she swiftly moved at the people in front of her. Before they could realize what was happening, she had taken down two of them and hid again, just out of their sights.

"Wh- Jack? What is happening?" 

His friend never had the time to answer. Kara chucked a fallen stick right at his head, and in one smooth motion ran and tackled the other. Making sure that they won't be waking for a while, she moved on to other teams. 

She had succeeded in spreading paranoia among the assailants. They were taking each step very carefully, as almost half of their friends were unconscious, or hanging upside down from the trees.

"Man... what is going on? We should stick together." One of the few remaining spoke in his radio. 

"I-I don't know. First team is not responding. This is creepy."

"I called for reinforcements. Nothing is going out. We are stuck here."

Kara could barely hear them over the heavy noise of rain. She inspected the perimeter they had set up in defense. One guy was roaming just outside other's view. She took the opportunity to take him out. But instead of doing it noiselessly this time, she let him scream loudly. 

"Wha-"

"Man, I am telling you. We should get out of here. I didn't sign-up for this kind of shit."

He just ran in the direction opposite to others. Kara quickly intercepted him and put him out of his misery. He never really saw her. The results of the fear inflicted in them baffled her. They were so spooked that they were overlooking the most basic trainings. The thunderclaps and lighting were only increasing the ambience she had carefully fabricated. One by one, she easily picked off the stragglers.

"Come out right now. COWARD! Just wait, I'll show you." The last two started firing in every direction. Kara took cover behind a large tree and promptly waited for their magazine to run out.

"Sorry for disturbing ma'am. Everyone is safely in the car and waiting for the next instruction. Do you want me to send them here?" Hope questioned in between the fight.

"No. I blocked the road. Tell Lee to take the other route. I will meet them in a few." Kara apprised and focused back on the final two. She sneaked behind them without either of them noticing.

"WHERE ARE YOU?" The man screamed at the top of his lungs while reloading. 

"Behind you." Kara whispered. They could not even fire back. In fear of her, one dropped his gun while the other fumbled the reload, allowing Kara to easily overpower them. Confirming that she was the last one standing, Kara started making her way towards the rendezvous point. 

Her plan was a complete success. The best thing about it was that she had not used any powers in the actual combat. Years training in the army had made her senses sharp enough to outmaneuver almost anyone in this type of weather. She strolled for a while and soon saw the car they had arrived in yesterday.

Drenched in the rain, she opened the car door and sat on the passenger side. Lena was driving while Nia and Ten were on the backseats. "How did it go?" Lena asked as soon as she stepped in.

"Meh. Not much of a threat. I thought they would bring out the brutes or something, like they did at Lord's gala. It was just ordinary guys with guns."

"The brutes are indisposed. I heard the business guy giving them some orders a few days back." Ten commented.

"Still... This was pretty easy. We should get out of here though, no point in wasting any time. Need to scout the city council and everything."

Lena drove them in the city. They had to be extremely careful, as police had set up checkpoints everywhere, in response of the breakout in the morning. Kara was sure that they were going to get caught somewhere, but Lena's knowledge of city's secret roads allowed them to make quite a headway inside. However, they had to ditch the car once it was guaranteed that they were going to get caught. It was not far from the heart of the city though. They broke into an abandoned apartment in a building, which gave a great view of the mayor's office. 

"We are running short on everything." Lena informed once they were settled. "I had to leave half my stuff hidden in the cabin. Don't expect too much help from me."

Ten was sitting in a corner, still shook. She did not seem well at all. Probably because of the red kryptonite she was injected with yesterday. Lena seemed to have some of Ten's blood and was busy experimenting on it. Nia was overlooking the news for anything interesting on her phone. Kara, not knowing what to do, took a seat beside Ten.

"How are you feeling?" She asked, wanting to start a conversation.

"Weird. Confused. I-I don't know what to do here."

"Yeah... this feeling kind of bamboozles you. I used to feel it when I first arrived on Earth. You will find your way. Don't think about it too much. Everyone eventually does." 

They fell into a comfortable silence after this brief conversation. Ten seemed to be lost in her thoughts, and Kara let her be. She was going through a drastic change, and all she could do was be there. For some reason, the woman having her face and voice did not creep her out as much as she thought it would. She saw her young self in her, which was completely lost. She promised herself that if Ten allowed her to help, she would try her best to guide her.

As the clock slowly ticked away, she made various plans to stop Virtuous. This was going to be a long, long day. It had barely started, and she had enough of it. She did not want the time to fly by, but alas, it always did. No matter what she wanted, the next few hours were going to be the most important in her life. 

All she could was prepare her best. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chap is the last one on Jan 10. A little time jump after that.
> 
> Thanks for reading!   
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.


	15. The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Jan 10th chapter. Finally.  
> Won't waste much of your time. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 15: The Storm

January 10th, 2:40 PM

A loud noise reverberated the atmosphere as lighting pierced through the sky. The thunderstorm was in its full form. As far as eyes could see, it was nothing but heavy downpour. It was as if gods wanted to drown everyone in National City. The water had already clogged the low-lying areas and was threatening even the posh regions.

This would be a great day to get in your blankets and cuddle, enjoying a cup of hot cocoa with some trash reality show in the background. Well, the television was still on, but instead of being cosy in her home, Lena was busy perfecting something for Kara. They all were still in the abandoned apartment they had 'borrowed' earlier. Kara was doing her usual focus meditation, probably to fend off her voices, Nia was scouring the news and internet for something useful, and Ten was simply... there. She was surveying Lena's work with quizzical eyes.

"What are you doing?" Ten asked in a small voice.

Lena looked over to her and Ten backed away fearfully from her gaze. She softened her features and beckoned her over to the table. Ten slowly reached over and looked at the various vials curiously. The way she furrowed her eyes, Lena had to do a double take. She and Kara were so damn alike. Until and unless you knew Kara very well, you would be fooled rather easily.

"I know what you are thinking." Ten broke the silence, as she kept observing the vials. "I am not her. I just look like her."

"I have many questions. How are you different, if you have the same memories?"

"I... I don't. I can only recollect a few things. Don't even know if they actually happened. I do remember the hours spent trapped under white light as surgeons did something to my brain. They wanted a mindless killing machine and I... I don't..."

"If you don't remember much, then why did you recognize me in the middle of the fight? The red veins were gone for one second, before they popped up again." Lena questioned further.

"You are one of the toughest things to remove from her brain, alongside a few things from her planet and Kal. She also hates furniture for some weird reason. I don't recall the finer things, but you have a lot of importance for her. Also, you kind of surprised me there. I was not expecting you."

Lena nodded at the answers and went on with her work. Ten eyed her warily, like she could snap at any moment. "You don't trust me, do you?" Ten asked after a while.

"No. But that seems to be more of a 'me' problem than you. I don't trust anyone easily. You will have to earn it over time." Lena gave a diplomatic reply. She believed in Ten's story. However, trust was a word she never throwed around lightly. 

"I am not complaining. I am lucky to be even alive. When you all caught me, I thought that was it for me." Ten told.

"Kar is a doof. She wants to believe in every single human living on this planet, no matter how horrible they are, because she thinks everyone deserves second chances. Most of the times she is right, and for the other times, I am there."

Ten nodded slowly at her words but made no attempt to keep the conversation going. She just sat there and watched Lena work without making any sound. It would be creepy if not for the inquisitive childlike look she was supporting on her face. She seemed genuinely excited, so Lena let her sit there. 

The time ticked by slowly. The thunderstorm was showing no sign of relenting. Lena had finally finished her work on the vials and was now busy planning for their steps going ahead. Kara was still meditating, probably having a conversation with her voices. She gathered Nia and Ten and sat across the dining table in the apartment. 

Her first concern was how to use kryptonite on Virtuous without it affecting Kara. Her usual method was used up on fighting with Ten. She had a Hail Mary way, but it was too crazy even for her. She pulled up a map of the area on her laptop and started marking a few spots.

"Nia, anything other than these points?" She confirmed.

"Nope. These are it."

"All right then. Hope, you know what to do. I want a way to deliver kryptonite in these three spots on my mark. Don't use everything at once. If anything remains after this, I will destroy it myself." She informed her AI.

"As you say ma'am."

"Anything interesting on the news?"

"Not really. Half of the city has already lost power due to the storm. No update on prisoners who broke out. The rain seems to be everyone's first priority at the moment. I found one thing which might be interesting, but it may also be nothing." Nia apprised.

"What is it?"

Nia opened a blog of some woman who lived downtown. She had posted a picture of one of the monsters Kara had fought earlier. It seemed to be the only thing in the streets which were full of water. Lena had a small speculation on where all these abominations might be going. Deciding to confirm it, she told Hope to access the DEO servers through a backdoor she had created earlier. 

Like she had predicted, DEO was under attack by many of these monsters. All the agents seemed to be completely pinned down. They were winning the fight for sure, but the progress was so slow that it would take them the whole day to deal with the monstrosities. 

Nia gasped on seeing the scenes unfold in front of her. Ten looked a bit unnerved but remained passive for the most part. Lena on the other hand, had no reaction to it. According to her, DEO deserved much worse. They would not have this problem if they did not treat Kara like that. She enjoyed everyone struggling with a small smile before turning it off and focusing on her troubles.

"Forget about them. Too late for us to do anything. Ten, do you want to help a bit?" She asked Ten who remained mum. "No fighting anything. I promise." She further reassured. 

"Umm.... can I say no?"

"Yeah. Just hear me out first. I want you to fly to the power station where Livewire is going to be, and place this." She pushed a small device on the table. "Livewire uses a specific kind of electro kinesis which is not natural at all. This device will observe her powers and would allow us to track her whenever she uses her powers. I would do this myself, but we barely have any time left."

Ten gazed at her for some hidden agenda. Finding none, she picked up the tool and flew out of the window without speaking. She returned just a minute later and sat back down. "Done."

"Thank you so much." She expressed her gratitude to Ten who just nodded in response.

"The mayor is arriving in a minute." Nia notified everyone. Lena got up and inspected the view outside the window. All she was able to spot through the heavy rain was a bunch of umbrellas outside the city hall. 

"Long may it rain." Kara's voice spoke from behind her. Turning around, she saw her wife toothily grinning at her. 

"That was a horrible pun, and you should be ashamed." She gave Kara a deep kiss, making her blush a bit. "You okay? I thought you were going to turn into a statue."

"Har-har. You have this bad sense of humor and you have the audacity to call my puns terrible." Kara stated goofily. "I am feeling a lot better than earlier. No headache anymore and things are a bit... clearer if that makes any sense. How are things on your end?"

"I have done everything I can. All yours from here. Come on, I'll explain a few things." She quickly became serious again and led Kara to the table, where Nia and Ten were already sitting.

"Thanks to Ten here, we have been able to do two major things. Livewire should be trackable now. And I was able to concoct this." Lena pulled the two vials she was working earlier. "Well... I would like to run some tests on this, but we don't have the time nor the equipment to do it. And before you all think I have messed this one up, I am working on fumes here."

"What is it Lee?" 

"A temporary fix... For your disease. Theoretically, if you took this before using your powers, then you should have no need to hold back. It should halt the cell decay process for a while. BUT this is only in case of extreme emergency. I kinda came up with this on the fly and biotechnology is not my strongest suit. There are going to be extreme side effects and I don't even know to what extent."

"Soo.... this is her pass to go ham?" Nia enquired. Kara looked contemplative for a couple of minutes.

"Yeah.... but I do not advise using this as an actual option. Ten's blood sample is very different from Kara's. So, it might cause some permanent issue and I would very much like to avoid that." Lena explained a bit more.

"Does it work?" Kara finally broke the silence.

"I-I don't know Kar. This is not even a proper prototype. That's why it's the last resort. We should be fine if we stick to our plans. Speaking of plans, should I just revise everything once more?"

"Nah. Going over it again and again would make us think it's not going to work. We know what to do, just have to implement it." Kara told and moved away. Lena followed her to the other room, where she was quietly sitting on the bed.

She sat down beside her, and Kara slowly put her head on Lena's shoulder. "Hey darling. You sure that you are feeling all right? The wounds have still not healed properly." She asked gently.

"Yeah. Promise. Just prefight jitters. I can't wait for this day to get over. Feels like 10th has been dictating our life for the last few weeks." Kara said while putting bandages on her right hand. "When's the first contact?"

"The meeting starts in 5 minutes. The power grid should be going offline any minute now."

"Can't we do anything to stop that?" Kara enquired.

"Don't have enough manpower. I need to be here. Nia doesn't know how to use her powers in combat and Ten has made it clear that she won't fight. I could tip DEO, but they are busy fighting their own battles." Lena clarified.

Kara finished wrapping her arm and sat there wordlessly. Lena knew that Kara being quiet meant that she was not at her 100% but she did not point that out. The amount of punishment Kara could take always astonished her. Even if her whole body was covered in wounds and scars, she would not just sit. Her pain threshold was simply stuff of legends.

"I spotted someone flying in the radar ma'am. 3 black vans are convening at City Hall's front entrance." Hope notified. The light went off the next second and the whole apartment was engulfed in darkness. 

"All right, game time." Kara whispered. She got up and stretched her body. Lena went close to her and gave a lingering kiss. "Fall back if things get too much, okay. Your life is more important." She whispered softly before capturing her lips again. 

Lightning flashed the sky as everything lit up for a millisecond. The thunder which followed was so loud that even a deaf person could hear it. Kara flinched for a second due to the noise. She was not going to have an easy fight at all. Lena clutched her coat a bit tighter to fend off the cold as she and Kara reconvened with Nia and Ten on the dining table.

"Everyone ready." Lena's question was met with a nod by everyone except Ten, who simply watched the events unfurl. "Let's do this."

Nia went off in the other bedroom while Kara opened the window to go outside. She stood there, looking at the skies for a couple of seconds before taking a deep sigh. She looked back to Lena and gave her a huge smile.

"Come back safe." Lena told instinctively.

"When do I not?" Kara replied winking and rushed over to give her a quick kiss before jumping out the window.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

' _Well, this is terrible._ ' A voice sassed in Kara's head. She had been flying for less than a minute and she was completely drenched. She probably would have been better wearing swimwear instead of regular clothes. Add to that, the lighting and thunder were causing her senses to go haywire every 30 seconds. All in all, she was not having a great time flying around.

She spotted Virtuous on the roof talking to someone on the phone. The conversation did not seem to be going very well, as she was stomping around angrily. Kara used the heavy rain as cover and hid just out of her sights. At the end, Virtuous crushed her phone and hit the ground hard enough to form a few cracks.

' _She seems angry._ ' Another voice pointed out. Kara thanked the Captain obvious and moved a little closer. The sound of rain hitting the ground was extremely disorienting for her, especially when she was using her powers, but she willed herself to stay calm. She saw Virtuous checking time on her watch before she punched a hole in the roof and went down. 

"The power is down everywhere ma'am. The only exception is CatCo. For some reason they still have everything up and running." Hope briefed. "In other news, DEO has almost won the fight against the monsters, but they have suffered heavy losses. I don't believe that we would be seeing them a lot."

"Thanks Hope. Can you patch me to Lee please?"

A second later Lena's voice piped up. "What happened Kar?"

"Nothing. Just informing that I am going in the building. They might have jammers in there so I could lose connection. Also please only contact through Hope. I might get disturbed by your voice in the middle of the fight."

"All right. Keep the earpiece on. I can track your position with it."

"Copy." Kara replied as she went down the hole created by Virtuous. The building was eerily silent. She soundlessly floated in the dark hallways. Soon enough, she came upon a trail of blood going down the right side. Changing her course, she followed the trail as the amount of blood kept increasing. It led to a room. Kara read the plaque to figure out that it was a conference room.

She quietly opened the door and peaked inside. Virtuous had her back to the door. She had an iron grip on the mayor's throat, who was gulping for air. Kara observed the room as much as possible from her position. There was a small camera nearby which was recording the events happening in the room. ' _Why is she recording this?'_ Kara thought.

Her mind went to Ten's words. She had warned that even if Virtuous failed, the Children of Liberty were going to try and seize power. Kara made a mental note to try and destroy the camera. Seeing that the mayor was quickly losing his life, she decided to make her presence known. 

"Did no one teach you about personal space?" She quipped.

Virtuous dropped the mayor like a sack of flour and hurled on Kara. "You... what are you doing here? How?"

"You are not as smart as you think you are. Your plan became kind of obvious once you broke the prisoners out. Full points for the attempt though. Took me a while to figure out." 

Virtuous looked her dead in the eye before laughing like a maniac. It took her a whole minute to stop wheezing. "I.. I see." She said between laughter. "Well, you are smart, I'll give you that. Too bad this is the last case you are ever going to solve. What were you even thinking coming here? You have trouble standing up properly. This fight will be over in a blink."

"Well... I wanted to offer you a chance to turn yourself in before I make you do it by force. So, think carefully what you are going to do next." Kara informed.

Her statement by another rambunctious laughter. "Oh man! You just keep getting funnier." Virtuous kept cackling. "I really like your optimism, but I am going to choose no on the deal. Look behind you." 

Kara slowly turned around. In front of her was a giant television, but nothing was on it. Confused she looked back at Virtuous, who pulled a remote control out of somewhere and turned it on. 

"Keep fooling yourself as much as you want, but you don't know me. You don't even know what I am working towards. If I wanted world domination, then I would have done it a long time ago. You see, the thing is, I hate this society humans have created. Criminals run free without any punishment, innocents have to beg for justice, and no one wants to do a single thing to change this."

"This mayor here-" Virtuous continued as she kicked the mayor in the stomach. "Who is supposed to serve the people has done nothing but fill his pockets throughout his tenure. He even tried to rape his assistant. You know what happened when she tried to file a complaint? Nothing. Nothing at all. All these criminals I freed, everyone one of them has done the most heinous crimes imaginable. They are the worst scum of humanity, yet they are allowed to not only exist in this world, but somehow live an all-right life behind the bars. Well, now they are going to pay for everything."

"This is not the correct method to bring about changes. Have you ever wondered how many innocents you have murdered following this mindset?" Kara questioned.

Virtuous did not skip one beat before replying. "Every war has casualties. The end will be worth it. Earth would become a heaven for everyone. They will finally be free. Because in this Earth, true justice would be served."

"But people change. That's the beauty of humans. They keep changing and evolving." Kara tried reasoning. "You are going to take away their opportunity to become better. Plus think about your actions. If you go through with your plan, then you would start a war between aliens and humans. Do they really deserve this?"

"Aliens are already marginalized. Didn't you see how they treated you and Lena once everyone knew your secret? She is the sister of a known terrorist, yet no one batted an eye for years. But as soon as they find that she is married to an alien who might be a murderer, lo behold, she can't work anymore. This world needs a revolution. And if it needs me to be a catalyst then I will be one because I am justice."

Virtuous pressed a few more buttons as the television came to life. Every prisoner who had escaped was tied on a pole with their hands pinned above their heads. If Kara was not used to grotesque scenes, she would have thrown up right then and there. Kara could practically feel Virtuous's wicked smile beneath her mask. 

"Don't worry about these filthy stains. They will die soon. Just need to repent for their sins. Today is the start of a new world. Too bad you won't be alive to see it."

Virtuous gave her no time to react as she struck her hard in her stomach. Kara went rolling around a bit. If she was not using her powers already, then this would have probably killed her. She swiftly got back up on her feet, but Virtuous gave her no reprieve. She kept punching her again and again with ferocious power.

Kara was having a hard time fighting back. Virtuous seemed to be otherworldly strong even when compared to her. All she could do was use her slightly speed advantage to dodge as many of the incoming attacks as possible. However, her luck soon ran out as one of the strikes hit her shoulder and made a loud cracking noise making it clear that it broke on the impact. Before she could even attempt to do something about it, Virtuous picked her from the ground and threw her straight into a column.

"Hope. Give me something." This was all Kara spoke before she had to fend off another onslaught. Virtuous seemed determined to put her six feet under. Her punch kept increasing in speed and precision making it rather hard for Kara to do anything. Seeing no way of winning a one on one, Kara tried to fall back a bit. 

It was a huge mistake. Turns out, heat vision was faster than her. Virtuous shot a beam in Kara's direction and it hit her bandaged arm, burning away the bandages. The stinging pain disoriented her for a bit and that was all Virtuous needed. She pinned her to the ground and started hammering punch after punch. Kara tried her best to hold her off, but it was a losing battle. Barely a couple of minutes later, she had completely lost vision of her left eye and her face looked like someone flunged her from the space. 

Just as her hopes were dwindling, something distracted Virtuous. She left Kara and listened for what was going on. While she was busy sorting it out, Kara slowly tried to get back on her feet. It was easier said than done. Every inch of her body was hurting like hell, but she gradually got back up on her feet. Spitting the blood gathered in her mouth, she immediately lost balance and almost fell on her face. Virtuous turned around and chuckled at Kara.

"You still want to fight? I am going to enjoy killing you."

Kara gave no reply. She pulled her fingers into a fist pulled into a defensive stance. Virtuous laughed darkly but before she could lunge at her, a drone flew in the room. It shot a few darts at Virtuous.   
"The hell is this?" Virtuous swatted the darts away. It appeared to have kryptonite in it, but Virtuous gave no indication of being affected. "Oh, you fool! You think kryptonite can stop me. Cute. News flash, this has no effect on me." For demonstration, she picked up one of the darts and broke it in her hand, spilling the liquid kryptonite out. 

Kara could feel herself becoming nauseous due to the kryptonite. Virtuous on the other hand was still standing upright. Kara clutched the vial in her pocket. She had picked it up from the table when she was going out the apartment. Her original plan was to lead Virtuous to the various points Lena had marked so that they could use kryptonite. However, seeing that green kryptonite was having no effect on Virtuous, that plan was out the window.

As Virtuous stalked towards her, Kara pulled out the vial and inserted it into her forearm. She expected to feel some kind of euphoric rush but all she felt was the pain from putting needle in her skin. ' _Come on. Work. Work._ ' Kara chanted in her head.

Virtuous closed the distance between them at once and put Kara in a chokehold. "Any last words?"

"W... What l-last w... words?" Kara replied as she felt the barriers in her body lifting. She used all her strength to push Virtuous away and flew straight up towards the sky. She paid no attention to the lighting and noise, as all her focus was to get above the clouds. Barely a couple of seconds later, she found herself in the sunlight. 

She closed her eyes as she basked in the sunshine. All her wounds started healing themselves and in just a few minutes later, she was as good as new. She could have returned then and there, but she decided to hang back a bit and gather as much energy as possible. This was the first time she was using the sun to heal all her wounds, as usually the power she used caused much more harm in the form of cell decay.

She waited there for a while. As she absorbed more and more sunlight, the voices retreated. After a long time, her head was finally clear. Now having nothing holding her back, Kara slowly opened her eyes and made her way back to the battlefield. "Welcome back ma'am. Want me to notify Ms. Lena?" Hope asked as she was flying back.

"Yeah. Tell her I am sorry it came to this. And even if something happens due to the vial, she should never blame herself."

Kara came back to the place where they were fighting. Virtuous was simply waiting for her while her monsters wrecked the city hall. Kara decided to focus on them first. Channeling her powers, she knocked everyone out rather quickly.

"Impressive. So, you actually had a plan. Or was this Lena's idea? She seems the more sensible one in the relationship. You are the dumb one, aren’t you?" Virtuous taunted and rushed at Kara.  
Kara tilted her head slightly. Virtuous's strike was met midway as Kara gave everything in her follow up attack. It connected successfully and Virtuous crashed into a column.

"Need to take this fight in vacant areas. Give me some locations Hope."

"East side of town ma'am. The outskirts have a few in-construction buildings, nothing devastating to lose. Additional advantage is Ms. Lena has a few surprises set up there. The bay is another option."

Kara flew and stayed just out of Virtuous's reach, egging her slowly towards the zone Hope mentioned. Having an equal ground in strength meant Kara could finally tank her blows, which allowed her to lead Virtuous without many issues. However, Virtuous's strength seemed to keep increasing forever. 

When they finally reached the destination, Kara unfortunately took one of the incoming blows in her stomach and the force made her go through a building which was under construction. Virtuous saw the building and began pounding on the foundations. A few seconds later, the whole skyscraper came tumbling down on top of Kara, destroying another giant structure. Kara straight away moved out of the way and gained some distance between herself and Virtuous. She looked around and found that she was in the desert section now. 

Turning around, she could see the destruction left behind. "Ms. Luthor tells to go for the mask ma'am. It is not made of any material found on Earth but by my calculations you have the strength to break it. It will be easier to defeat her if we know her identity."

"On it." Kara stood and the sand and took a deep breath. Unknown to her, she had started to glow a bit, making her look like she had a golden aura around her. The next moment, there was nothing but sand where she was standing as she sped straight towards Virtuous, who was also flying towards her. Their attacks met midway. The shockwave generated was powerful enough to stop the rain for a few seconds. 

They both traded hits for more than half an hour, with no clear winner in sight. The longer the fight went, the more National City was getting destroyed. Finding herself backed in a corner, Kara decided to go for the kill. Virtuous had been using heat vision for quite a while now, so she decided to even it out. Feeling the stinging behind her eyes, she unleashed her full-strength heat vision.

Virtuous tried to match it, she really did. But the intensity and temperature of Kara's heat vision trumped hers. Kara used this to her advantage and started slowly moving towards her opponent. Due to extensive heat, Virtuous mask started melting off. She tried to cover it but doing so opened her for attack. Kara took this opportunity and got an additional hit.

Virtuous was clutching the left side of her mask which was completely melted. She used her own heat vision to put the pieces back together, but there were some large holes in it. Kara was only able to confirm that she had dark chocolate eyes.

Virtuous gave a dry chuckle. "Nice try." She briskly fixed her mask and got ready for another round. Kara was busy figuring out her face. She had seen those eyes somewhere, just couldn’t remember where. Her tangent thought process allowed Virtuous to gain an upper hand in the battle. 

"B-but how can I remember those eyes?"

' _Focus Kar. We’ll deal with this later._ ' Lena's voice screamed at her in the mind. 

The battle waged on for hours. They both were tired and had enough broken bones to make half a human skeleton just with them. However, none of them were healing as there was no sun, and no one allowed other to leave through the clouds. Panting due to the exertion, Kara got ready for her final hit, and by the looks, Virtuous was ready too. She put her every ounce of her strength behind this punch. One again they met halfway. However, instead of having a tie like usual, this time there was a clear winner.

Kara fell clutching her hand in pain. She looked up to see Virtuous missing half her right arm. She howled in pain as they both fell a few feet away from each other, completely drained of everything. Kara tried to inch closer to end it all, but Virtuous got up first. But she did not go for Kara. She slowly flew away without any word, fleeing from the battle.

Kara wanted to do something to stop her. She tried to use heat vision, even flying to no avail. Her body had completely given up. She was stuck there in the rain with broken bones and no way to move around. She gave a sarcastic laugh at the heaven before closing her eyes.

"Hang on darling. Help is on the way." Lena's voice came from somewhere. Maybe she was dreaming again. She desperately tried to keep her eyes open. In the end, she couldn't do it. 

A few seconds later, she felt someone picking her up from the ground. Maybe the angels had finally came. She could be in Rao's light. This thought made her smile a bit as darkness completely engulfed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the ending was kind of a fake out, but I wanted to do an aftermath chapter as this was getting way too long.  
> Some love to Alex in next chapter. It's been a while since we last saw her. 
> 
> Also I am doing a small time jump. So something else to look forward to.
> 
> I wrote another story while working on this. Don't worry this one will not go anywhere. Go check that out if you want to.  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/29437506/chapters/72312513
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.  
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.  
> Hope you enjoyed !


	16. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello.  
> As the title suggests, this is more of a chapter where characters get to breath a little. A quick aftermath and look at the world after the fight.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy.

CHAPTER 16: Interlude

January 24, 11 PM  
Two weeks. It had been just two weeks since the storm. Since the day, a battle between two titans took place. Two weeks may not seem like a lot of time for someone, but when you investigate the changes National City went through in the same time period, one would be forced to wonder, has it really been just 14 days?

No one had seen Kara or Virtuous since that day. Probably for good cause. They both had been declared terrorists and everyone was told to treat them as a national level security threat. Children of Liberty, on the other hand, had come out of the shadows and were now running rampant in the city, spreading their propaganda through hate speeches and rallies. The tension in the city was almost on its tipping point. Violence against aliens was increasing at an alarming rate, and it would only be so long before they retaliated.

The rebuilding was going on a steady pace. Fortunately, majority of the fight had taken place on the outskirts of the city. So, the levelling of buildings was limited to a region only. Remarkably, there was only a few losses to human life, even if you included the one in City Hall. Not something anyone would expect when a brawl between two godlike individuals took place. 

"Even after two weeks, the city is still reeling from the aftermath of the terrorist attack. "Both the responsible parties will be captured soon enough. We have been given permission to use kryptonite. It's only a matter of time.", says the mayor in response to when the assailants would be brought to justice. The mayor was one of the brave figures who stood against the kryptonians on that frightful day."

"The real question right now should be, where is Superman? Isn't it his responsibility to ensure that these things do not go out of control? And these radicals are of his species. His absence in the matter should not be left unchecked."

"This act of domestic terrorism is the reason we need to keep the aliens in check. The things cannot keep going as they were. We need immediate changes to stop anything like this from ever happening again."

Alex watched the debate going on the TV with a beer in her hands. She was getting quite fed-up seeing people trying to act as experts on this matter. Captured soon enough her ass. No one had any idea where either Kara or Virtuous were. And they were not close to finding it at all. 

DEO had undergone drastic changes and some of them disturbed Alex to her core. General Sam Lane was given the role of supervisor while a committee tried to discover the reasons for their failure to stop the attack. To no one's surprise, Lane pulled some strings and filled the ranks with some of the most xenophobic people ever born. They were given permission to 'interrogate' suspects with any means necessary. Alex did not need her PhD to know what happened to those poor people. 

J'onn had resigned right after he came across one alien's torture and Lucy did not visit them since Kara's breakout. So now they had no director. Alex often wondered why she even worked there. ' _Because you feel it is repentance for what you did to Kara._ ' The question was met with the same answer over and over again. 

"Why are you focusing on this crap again?" Maggie's voice stopped her from spiraling down in self-regret again. She slid in the seat beside her with her own beer in her hand. They were hanging in their usual spot, but there was a significant decrease of people around them.

"I don't know." Alex replied. "Everything feels like my mistake. If I hadn't shot..."

"Don't go there again." Maggie interjected. "What's done is done. You can't go back and change it. Learn your lesson and move on. That's all our past is for."

"Kinda hard do it when I see the fruits of my labor slapped on the news every day." Alex shrugged.

"You don't know that. Maybe something else could have happened, but that gives no guarantee that everything would have been fine and dandy."

"Maybe." 

"I just hope Kara is all right. She did not look good from what I have seen in the footages." Maggie verbalized her thoughts. 

"I hope that too." 

They sat in silence for a while. Alex glanced at Maggie who was busy in her own thoughts. They had gone on one date, three days ago. Well, it wasn't really a 'date' date. They just hung out for a while eating tacos. It had felt nice, those two hours living in their own world before coming back to reality. Neither of them wanted to start a relationship in the present scenario. So they were kinda together while at the same time not being together.... Frankly, Alex did not know what they were. 

"Heads up." Maggie whispered suddenly. "That girl at 7'o clock. She seems nervous and has been looking at you for 5 minutes now. Either she wants a date, or her intentions ain't good."

"Let's find which one it is." Alex put her bottle down and walked towards the girl Maggie mentioned. The girl could not have been older than 20. 

"What are you doing here kid? Aren't you too young to drink?" Alex asked sitting across her.

"Don't hurt me or anything please. I was asked to send you this. I was just confirming that you were Alex Danvers. Sorry for staring." She ran off, leaving an envelope behind.

"Wait a min... ute." The girl was long gone by the time Alex got her brain to move on. Maggie took the seat opposite her and they both stared at the envelope. "You doing the honors? It was meant for you." Maggie asked.

Alex carefully observed the envelope. It seemed to be ordinary. But why would someone send her something ordinary after going through so much trouble. "It's not a bomb. Too small and light. Seems like a letter to me. Worst case, poison, but low chances. I don't smell anything fishy either." Maggie notified after just one look.

Alex just decided to rip it. She would deal with whatever was inside it. As Maggie told, there was a letter inside. She opened the neatly placed paper and read through the content.

"What is it?"

It was only one sentence. But even that sentence was too much for her. ' _You wanted the second chance, right? Meet near the docks at 12_.' She gave the slip of paper to Maggie who read it at least three times.

"Umm...... This is sketchy as fuck. Who woul-"

"It's Kara. Or Lena. One of the two." Alex intervened Maggie's thought process.

"How do you know that?"

"I asked her for the second chance. The day after. She told it would have to be earned." Alex explained but Maggie still looked suspicious.

"Well... If you think so. Either way, I am not letting you go alone. This could easily be some kind of trap." Maggie said getting up from her seat. "Come on. Let's go. It's gonna take time getting there."

They got in Alex's car and drove near the docks arriving 15 minutes earlier. Maggie used that time to check the surroundings while Alex tried to find whomever she was supposed to meet. As soon as the clock struck 12, an alarm rang nearby. Reaching the place, they saw... no one.

"This doesn't feel right to me." Maggie shared her intuition.

At that exact moment, someone else spoke from the shadows, "When I sent that message, it was implied that you come alone."

"Who is there?" Maggie pulled out her gun and aimed in the general direction of the voice.

Lena slowly sauntered out of the shadows, a phone in her left hand. "Who are you?" She placed the phone back in her pocket and narrowed her eyes at Maggie. 

"Lt. Maggie Sawyer, NCPD. I met you when Kara had the panic attack due to the elevator." Maggie replied and lowered her gun.

"I don't trust you." Lena told bluntly. "You should head back right now. I am not in the mood of chit-chatting. The invitation was for Alex only." 

"No." Maggie told determinedly. "If Danvers is going, then I am going too."

Lena looked between the both of them with raised eyebrows. Before either of them could understand what was happening, Lena pulled out a pistol and shot Alex in the leg within a second. "WHAT THE HELL?" Alex screamed immediately falling to the ground.

Maggie aimed her gun at Lena's head, who had already holstered hers. "That was for Kara. You are lucky I didn't aim for the head. I told you what would happen if you hurt her. This was the final warning. Now follow me."

"We are not following you anywhere." Maggie replied still in a defensive stance. 

"If you want her to bleed out here, be my guest. It's a flesh wound but would still needs some first aid. If you do not believe me, ask her." Lena spoke coldly and started strolling towards the water. 

Maggie glanced at Alex's leg before making up her mind. "Hold on Danvers."

Alex tried getting up, but instantly buckled due to pain. Lena had hit her right below her left kneecap. The bullet had gone completely through due to the angle, but it was such a well-placed shot that she was not able to do much. Fortunately for her, Maggie held her left side, which allowed her to make slow progress.

They followed Lena to a small yacht parked nearby. "Get in." She told and went to turn on the motors. 

There was a first aid box and a backpack lying on a nearby seat. Maggie helped her sit down and brought over the first aid. "You have to help me a bit. I don't remember much from the academy."

"The bullet is gone through, right?" Seeing Maggie nod, Alex continued. "Then just clean and stop the bleeding. A bit easier."

She guided Maggie through the process. She did everything fine until it came to suturing the wound. Her hands were shaking, and she kept flinching every time Alex made a painful noise. Lena was watching them struggle from a bit away before finally deciding to help them.

"Give it to me." She told Maggie who looked at her skeptically. "Seriously, you think I am going to hurt her now? I could have shot her anywhere."

Maggie reluctantly handed everything over. Lena, unsurprisingly, was miles better than her. She finished it in a couple of minutes and stood near the edge of the boat, still not saying a word. "Okay, how are you good at this? This does not make any sense." Maggie tried to start a conversation.

"I've had practice." It was all Lena said.

"Okay...... why shoot her in the first place? That won't change what happened in the past. What was the point if you yourself patched her up?"

"Made me feel good." Lena shrugged and moved away so that Maggie could not ask her anything else.

"Let her be Sawyer." Alex told Maggie who sat beside her. She was feeling a little better after taking the painkillers, but it still hurt like hell. Maggie held one of her hands as the yacht gradually proceeded to its destination.

Around ten minutes later, Lena parked the boat near the land and picked the backpack. "You know what to do Hope." She spoke to her AI prior to focusing on Alex and Maggie. "Follow me. Try not to deviate too much."

Maggie held Alex’s side once again as they abandoned the boat and followed Lena. They seemed to be a small way away from the outskirts of National City. There were a few houses here and there, but no one lived in them. Lena took them to one such house and opened the gate to basement. 

"Stay right behind me." She ordered as a light seemed to scan them for something.

"Welcome back Mrs. Zorel. Are the two individuals with you?" A smooth voice asked.

"Yeah. Activate #2431." 

"As you wish. Welcome everyone."

This was the first of many checkpoints in the way. They had to do one thing or another at every step, with different voices greeting them in different manners. Finally done with the process, they stepped into an empty basement...... "Huh? This seems to be missing a few things. You would think that after all that security points, we would walk into a more.... full room." Maggie commented.

Lena did not dignify the comment with a response. She looked at Maggie with one raised eyebrow and kept punching things on her phone. The room suddenly lit up with red color. A door slid open out of nowhere, revealing an elevator behind it. Everyone stepped inside and it started moving on its own.

"Umm... where are we going?"

"Underground. This was a facility made by Lionel in case a nuclear war broke out. No one ever used it, until now." On point, the elevator stopped, and the doors opened to reveal a healthy sized living room. There were a few bean bags and chairs alongside a sofa in it. On the left of the room was a sizable kitchen and a dinner table. The right side was blocked off.

A woman with chocolate brown hair was lounging on the couch. Alex had no idea who she was. "Settle down. I will be right back." Lena informed and went in another direction, taking the backpack with her.

Alex painfully sat down on the left side of the woman who stared at them in confusion. "Oh! I didn't introduce myself. Samantha Arias. Or just Sam. My bad on that part." Sam shook her hand with fervor.

"So how did you find yourself in this circus? And why does that name sound familiar?" Maggie leaned forward in her chair once Alex was settled comfortably. 

"I have the unfortunate luck of being the CEO of LuthorCorp. You can thank Lena for that. Stupid idiot. I would have said no if she was not going through such a bad time. Anyway, I have been their friend for years now."

"Kara told me a few things about you. Mostly about your cooking skills." Alex informed, remembering the several tales about dinner at Sam’s.

"Sounds like her." Sam laughed. "Honestly, the amount of time she spends thinking about food is just astonishing."

"I am sorry I didn't get your names?" Sam asked after a brief silence. 

"Maggie Sawyer. This dumbo here is Alex Danvers."

The smile on Sam's face vanished as soon as she heard Alex's name. "You should not have hurt her. She already has severe abandonment issues. I hope this would not affect her too much."

Alex could do nothing but stare at the ground. Sam's voice wasn't that of anger. It was full of sadness and sorrow. And that somehow made the situation worse than it should have been. She could deal with anger. It was the disappointment which frightened her.

They sat there, everyone lost in their own world. The atmosphere was broken by the giggling of a young girl. "Mom, look what Aunt Kara did to my iPad." A girl about 14 years old came rushing and hugged Sam from behind, completely ignoring Maggie and Alex.

She had an iPad in her hands whose cover was adorned with a beautiful painting. "This is so sick. Freddie is gonna flip. I can't wait to show this to those losers." The girl continued on in excitement.

Sam engulfed her in a huge hug, despite her protests. "Lemme go. This is not cool." The girl nimbly broke free from the hug and observed Maggie and Alex for the first time. "Who are you two?"

"Here we go again. I am getting tired of this shit." Maggie whispered. "I am Maggie and this is Alex. We are here to help." She summarized.

"Huh? You don't look much help." The girl pointed to Alex's bandaged leg.

"Ruby! What did we talk about manners?" Sam lightly scolded her. "I am sorry for her. She has no filter."

"I do have one." Ruby protested.

"No, you don't." A separate voice spoke this time. Alex slowly turned herself to see Kara walking towards them with the help of crutches. Her left hand was completely wrapped in bandages and she was dressed down for bed. She trudged towards them and settled in a bean bag. Ruby plopped down beside her. Kara immediately started tickling her, making her fall down.

"Not cool dude." Ruby got back up and sat in the adjacent seat. 

Kara grinned at her before asking Sam, "Where's Lee?"

"She brought the bag. Administering it maybe."

"Hmm." Kara nodded and looked around, but never met Alex's eyes. "How have you been Maggie?" She asked.

"You guess kiddo. I haven't been this overworked since the academy. And it's not like I am doing anything. Just protecting our dickhead mayor and his lackeys."

"Language!" Kara and Sam spoke at the same time, while Ruby gave a devilish smirk. "You guys act like I don't know these words. Wanna listen to a few I made on my own?" 

"Over my dead body." Sam narrowed her eyes at Alex and Maggie. "No talking like that in front of her. I have enough stress without her swearing like a sailor."

"Mooom. You are being weird right now." 

Ruby's giggling died down gradually and the room was filled with silence once Lena walked in. Everyone stayed rooted except for Ruby, who rushed out of her seat and launched herself into Lena. Surprisingly to Alex and Maggie, Lena actually laughed at her antics before releasing her from the hug.

"When are you teaching me how to configure Hope?" Ruby asked making baby eyes.

"Tomorrow. Promise. Can you hang out with Ten for a little while? We need to work here."

"Can't I listen? I am getting bored here. When can we leave?"

"Soon sweetie. I am trying my best." Lena patted Ruby's back. "Now get going. I'll be there soon."

Once Ruby left, Lena took her seat and glanced at everyone seated. Sam was adjusting her t-shirt, Maggie and Alex were dead serious, and Kara was still avoiding Alex like her life depended on it. Lena sighed before beginning, "Still no clue on Virtuous's location. Lord seems to be running Children of Liberty. With the massive public support they have, we can't take any direct action."

"She might still be healing like me." Kara told. "We still need a way to stop her since kryptonite has been worthless."

That was news to Alex. She had no idea that Virtuous was immune against kryptonite. She looked at Maggie, who too seemed startled by the observation. "Correction. Green kryptonite doesn't work. We don't know about the other colors." Lena notified.

"Hang on a minute." This time Maggie voiced in between. "There are colors to this? Isn't kryptonite just green?"

"No. It is one of the most stable isotopes. Kryptonite as an element can occur in various forms. One of them is red and has completely different effects. We have not discovered the others.... yet." Lena explained.

Alex remained still, trying to absorb the information. "Is that why you brought me here? I can try figuring others out, but chemistry is not my best subject."

"No." Lena got up and went somewhere, returning a few seconds later. "I brought you here because I need you to work on this." She put a dossier in Alex's lap. Alex gingerly opened it and took her time to read the content inside.

Lena seemed to have found a temporary solution to Kara's power issues. However, the side effect was that she healed much slower. Even slower than average human. The biggest drawback though, was highlighted in red. ' _No powers for 72 hours. Could lead to cardiac arrest and/or complete body failure._ '

"Umm...... How did you even get to this?"

"That's need to know. I will tell you once the time comes." Lena replied coldly. "I'll send some stuff to your apartment, but you will have to spend some time here every week."

"And what if I decide not to help?" Alex asked.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. You are already in. You accepted when you decided to follow her here." Sam told Alex and Maggie. 

Alex was going to help. That was never in doubt. She was just testing the waters. She looked at Maggie who nodded at her before looking back to Kara, who was still not making any eye contact. "I can try. No guarantee that this would work. This is a completely new territory and it's going to take weeks just to improve this version."

Once satisfied with her answer, Lena turned her attention to Maggie. "Well, I did not plan for you being here. But I can think of a few stuffs. How do you feel about doing illegal things?"

"Not good...... But I can be persuaded. What do you want?"

"Nothing as of now. That will definitely change in the future." Lena then focused on Sam. "Do you need something?"

"Not much. Rubes might need some specific items. And we are running out of food items. I'll give you a list."

"I am sorry for not understanding this, but why are you here? And along with a kid." Maggie questioned the presence of Sam. It was nagging Alex too, but she did not want to come off as rude.

"Half a dozen government agencies are looking for me. I am the only connection to Lena they could find to exploit. I had to hide. And I couldn't leave Ruby. So here we are." Sam explained with a sad tone. 

Maggie did not ask any follow up questions. Everyone sat still for a while. Sam was the first to get up. "Well, as fun as this was, I should tuck in Ruby. Good night everyone." She left in the direction Ruby went.

Kara was the next to get up. She slowly reached for her crutches and stood on her feet. She whispered something to Lena and went on her way too. "Kara wait...." Alex called after her. 

Kara stilled for a moment. Seeing this as the only opportunity she would get Alex began, "I know you don't want to believe one word I say, but please just listen. I am sorry for what happened. It doesn't change anything, but I just want to say it. I really am sorry."

"So am I Dr. Danvers." Kara replied coldly and limped towards wherever she was going. 

Maggie gave her shoulders a squeeze. "Don't give up now Danvers."

"I just... if she is not gonna talk why even bother bringing me here?"

"She did not want to." Lena commented. "That was my decision. Come on, I'll show you your rooms."

"Huh? We are not going back?" Maggie asked.

"This late? I mean if you want to, I can send you right back up to the surface. You won't be able to go anywhere, but the basement should be quite all right for spending the night."

"All right sass lady. I get it. Let's go." Maggie hauled Alex on her feet and accompanied Lena. She guided them to another elevator and went a floor down. There were a couple of rooms there. They were not the best, but good enough to spend the night. Maggie dropped her off before going to her own room. 

Lena helped her setting up the room a bit and changed her bandages. "This should heal soon." She talked to herself. "Missed the angle a bit. Probably out of practice." 

"Listen..." Alex began. "I-"

"No. This is not a forgiveness drive. Just do your job and leave us alone." Lena said before walking out of the room. 

Alex laid on the bed for a while, thinking of what had transpired in the last 2 hours. She went from drowning in self-pity to having a chance to do some good again. The last thought that went through her mind as she slept was that she was not going to fuck this up. No matter the obstacles, she won't let anyone down again. That was a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed it.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


	17. A New Plan

Chapter 17: A New Plan

February 5, 4 PM

The winter in National City seemed to be going on for a really long time. Usually, by the end of January, it relents giving rise to the pleasant spring. This year however, even in the first week of February, temperature was going low enough that you could not go outside without packing yourself in a cocoon of clothes.

Lena blamed the rain. For Rao knows what reason, National City was getting a downpour every other day. And it was not like anyone was enjoying it. All it did was worsen the state of an already troubled city. There had been 15 incidents of violence in the last couple of days. Children of Liberty had been at the center point of each of these. Their fanatic followers were spewing their lies night and day, trying to coerce more and more people into joining them.

It seemed to work pretty well in their favor too. Their numbers had been increasing faster than the sales during Black Friday. The government had given up on any kind of censorship. Even various media houses were actively supporting them. So, when aliens started fighting back against the blatant discrimination, no one was really surprised.

The only businessman who seemed not to be perturbed by all this was Maxwell Lord. He had given numerous interviews supporting the Children of Liberty and pushing his various ideas and inventions that allowed humans to be 'defend' against any alien threat. The public was swallowing all his bullshit without a single question. All in all, National City was well on its way to become a warzone, with Lord being the only winner.

Holding her overcoat a little bit tighter to fend off the cold air, Lena entered Nia's apartment building. She had called an emergency a few hours back and being the only one outside the bunker, Lena had decided to check it out. She had opted for a minimal disguise, with shades and a hat covering half of her face. Hope was busy scrambling the nearby cameras to stop anyone from obtaining her photos.

Everyone had agreed to let Nia live in her apartment for a while. The bunker was getting way too crowded, and Nia had offered to take the short stick, as she was the only one who was not getting targeted by the government agencies.

She reached the apartment door a few minutes later and rapped on it a few times. Nia poked her head outside before letting her in. Lena moved inside and sat on the seat near the kitchen table. "Do you want anything? I'm making coffee." Nia asked opening a few cabinets.

"Water is fine." Lena replied and observed the apartment. "This is a nice place. Good for you."

"Thanks. Got it for a discount because of the LuthorCorp building two blocks down." Nia informed with a sad smile.

"I kind of guessed that. So, what's the emergency?"

Nia put a glass full of water in front of her and started the coffee maker. Once it was prepared, she sat down and took a sip before finally replying, "I saw something last night. It wasn't a clear dream like the last one. But there was a bunch of symbolism that I have been trying to decode. I... I think I saw where Virtuous is."

"Explain." Lena replied instantly.

"So, this was a weird dream right. So, don't go around taking anything literally. I woke up in a prison like thingy, but all the doors were open. There were a few things written on the wall in Latin. I followed the hallways and there were these bizarre drawings about some sort of technology, I guess. Also, a few aliens were talking to each other about some kryptonian woman. Then, everything got shifted and I was outside the prison thingy."

"Next thing I knew; I was near a giant iceberg and a few images flashed through my mind. They were so creepy. Someone was being tortured and begging to die. There were mentions of Lord and someone else. The last thing I saw before waking up was a giant crater. Don't know where it was."

Once Nia finished speaking, Lena tried to make sense of the things that happened in the dream. Her efforts came up short though, as nothing seemed to be connected. "So… you never really saw Virtuous?"

"Nope. But Virtuous is Latin name, right? And there were Latin writings on the wall. Plus, people were talking about a kryptonian woman."

"Hmm. Long shot. But we should follow it up. Good work."

Nia gave a huge grin in response to the appreciation. She drank some more of her coffee before telling Lena excitedly, "I've also been messing around with my powers a little bit. I mean... I always thought that I could do more than just dream but never really tried to... you know, experiment. The last few weeks I have been trying to work out more ways to use them and I think I had a breakout."

"Hmm? And what were the discoveries?"

"Well... I can shoot stuff out of hands." Nia put her hand forward to demonstrate something. Lena patiently waited a while, but nothing happened. "Umm.... give it some time. Yesterday was my first time doing it." Nia paused for a second, "God that sounded wrong."

"Take your time." Lena folded her hands and sat in amusement.

"Can yo- Can you not look at me? Just for a minute. It's very distracting."

"All right." Lena replied and looked the other way. A couple of minutes later, few things fell out of the cupboard as Nia exclaimed, "I DID IT!"

Turning around, Lena saw a blue mark on the wall which faded after a second. Nia was busy jumping up and down in excitement while she surveyed what happened. "Seems like you are pulling energy from another plane of existence. Impressive stuff. Just needs a lot of practice to be useful in a fight."

Nia nodded in agreement. "I know. I'm gonna try this until I can do it on reflex."

"Great! I need the details of the dream as usual. You are going to have to most of the work on this. I am already swamped with so much..." Lena sighed in between. "I really should sleep a little more."

"Yeah. Sleeping is like the best energy booster."

"You sound like Kara."

"She is correct like ninety nine percent of the time."

"Still point five percent less than me." Lena mumbled and picked up her belongings. "Stay safe. The streets are like a fucking minefield. No idea from where something life threatening will pop up."

"Yeah. You too. Byee." Nia waved her goodbye as she exited the apartment and walked outside the building.

Her next target was a..... supermarket. Preferably on the outskirts of the city. She walked to the car she had 'borrowed' a few weeks ago from some rich idiot's house and punched her destination in the GPS.

"Take the third route ma'am. Adds ten to fifteen minutes but has the least number of patrols." Hope notified after checking.

"Thanks Hope."

She carefully drove around the streets, avoiding the police cars as much as possible. It would be really messy if even one cop pulled her over. Reaching her destination after an hour, she parked the car and went inside the store.

Sam had given her a list of things to buy. She had installed herself the cook and manager the very day she had arrived, to no one's complain. Thinking of Sam and Ruby made Lena regretful. It was not fair that they had put their entire life on pause because some idiots wanted to get to her to get to Kara. The worst part of the whole ordeal was how Ruby's face fell every time she was told that it was not safe to go back.

She picked up the various general items and checked out the store. However, while she was pulling out of the parking, someone knocked on her window.

"Excuse me ma'am." A uniformed officer said politely.

"Yeah." Lena replied in a high-pitched voice, her heartbeat picking up. One of her hands went directly to her phone.

"May I see some identification please? This is for your own safety only. This area has been heavily hit by alien violence and criminal activity."

"Sure." She replied while dialing Kara's number, hoping that the network gods would take mercy on her and it would connect.

Lena gave her fake driving license and registration papers. "Thank you for your time Miss Helen. Can you ans-"

The call got picked up at that instant and Lena immediately started talking. "I know it's getting late honey, but you have to be patient. Yeah, I have your ice-cream. And chocolates. Yes yes." She looked at the cop and mouthed, 'Sorry, my daughter.'

"Are you high?" Kara's puzzled voice came through. "Please don't be doing drugs."

"Yeah yeah. I'm at the store. No, I'm fine. Just talking to someone. No, he is not wasting my time. I promise I'll be back as soon as possible." Lena carried on.

"Ohhh... got it. My bad. Tell him hi from me." Kara replied finally catching on to what was going on.

The cop patiently waited for her to finish the call. Seeing this, Lena changed her tactics and told him, "I am so sorry. But she has a condition where she has to talk to someone continuously when she is feeling sad. This might take some time. Are you fine standing here for a while?"

"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "H-how long exactly?"

"Oh, this could go for a long time. Depends on her mood. Again, I am so sorry. I would have cut the call if it was someone else. But I can't... you know, she is my life." She cracked her voice in the end to make her acting feel more genuine.

The guy looked at his watch and back to her for a couple of minutes before deciding on something. "This all checks out ma'am. I had some questions, but they are not that necessary. I hope your daughter gets well soon."

Lena nodded at his words as he took his leave. "Now I have to sit here for half an hour to avoid suspicion." She sighed to Kara, calming down a bit.

"Look at the bright side. It could have been much worse." Kara's voice chimed in.

"Yeah." She sighed.

It could definitely have been worse. She would trade wasting half an hour over gaining unnecessary attention any day. The next twenty minutes breezed by as she kept talking to Kara, who was feeling down today, as Alex was supposed to come in the evening. Lena did not have a great feeling about it either, but they needed her. Alex was the best in her line and finding someone else who knew and understood kryptonian anatomy would have taken way too long.

She started the car around 25 minutes later and slowly drove out of the area. Fortunately, she had no other scare, and she reached the bunker without any issues. She hid the car out of sight before making her way underground. Kara and Sam were sitting on the bean bags, and the former grinned seeing her arrive.

"You had ice-cream? Gimme." Kara made grabby hands towards her.

"I have chocolates." She tossed them towards Kara who accepted them joyously. "Save some of them for Ruby."

"I will." Kara replied ripping apart the wrappers.

Sam laughed lightly and got up from her seat. "Are you fine?" She asked inspecting Lena from head to toe. "She just kept laughing when I asked what the issue was."

"Nothing too serious. It turned out well in the end. I have some new information from Nia. Seems good enough to check out." Kara stopped eating as soon as she heard the word information.

"Nope. Go take a shower and nap. The information won't go away. You did not sleep yesterday and today seems to be tiring too." She advised narrowing her eyes at Lena.

"Kar-"

"La la la. I'm not listening to anything. Rest first, work later."

Lena sighed again. She knew she was not going to win against Kara on this. So as advised, she went to the showers and laid on the bed to get caught with her sleep. Her eyes opened rather abruptly to a bunch of noises around two hours later.

"What the hell?" A voice shouted at someone. Lena slowly got up and rubbed her eyes. Someone seemed to be having a heated conversation. She groggily walked in the direction of the shouting. However, any sleepiness in her vanished as soon as she saw the scene in front of her eyes.

There was some sort of standoff going on. Alex was on one side, Kara and Ten on the other. Sam was trying to calm everyone but that did not seem to be going well. Kara seemed to be shielding Ten, who was trying her best to tune everything out. Lena moved in the room and asked in a voice loud enough that everyone could hear, "What is going on?"

Everyone directed their attention towards her. Sam sighed in relief on her arrival. Kara, however, still seemed to be pissed off, something Lena was not used to very much. No one spoke anything for a while. The tension in the room had everyone on edge.

"Is someone going to explain? Kara?" Lena asked again.

"Ask her." Kara spat at Alex. "Scaring Ten out of her mind. What was she thinking shouting at her?"

"She is a goddamn murderer. Why is no one explaining me why we are letting her roam around?" Alex replied but her voice lacked the anger. She seemed utterly bewildered seeing Ten there.

"Calm down darling." Lena requested Kara who was still shooting daggers towards Alex. "This is just a misunderstanding. Why don't both you and Ten talk a short walk? Clear your mind a bit."

Kara murmured something in Kryptonese but reluctantly agreed and took Ten out of the room. Alex was still looking like a fish out of water, not believing her eyes at all. "Where's Ruby?" Lena asked Sam.

"Sleeping. Her whole schedule is messed up. I have given up on fixing it. At least until everything becomes a bit more normal again." Sam replied.

Lena nodded and focused on Alex. "Sit down please. I'll explain."

Alex followed her instruction and sat down opposite her. "That was Ten. Kara's clone. Virtuous made her and used her to kill a lot of people. She is the reason I was able to build the temporary fix for Kara. She does not have her disease." Lena summarized shortly. 

"How are you sure that she won't turn on you and murder while you sleep? She was built by Virtuous. Who knows what long game she is playing?"

"She is a person with emotions, not a machine. And isn’t it ironic that you are the one who is talking about betrayals." Lena replied without any pause. "The only reason she did anything for Virtuous was because of the red kryptonite. She still struggles from its withdrawals. She never even wanted to fight in the first place."

"I-I don't trust her."

"I do. And no one is asking you to. She is a part of this, whether you like it or not. You are free to leave if that bothers you too much." Lena told bluntly.

Alex looked conflicted but made no attempt to get up and move. A few moments later, Kara hobbled back in the room along with Ten. Kara was looking calmer, but her actions were telling that she was still a little worked up. Lena told them to sit down and brought Sam back in the room too. Once everyone was settled, she began, "Everyone fine now?"

Kara huffed and folded her hands while Ten subtly glanced at Alex to gauge her reaction. She had spent the last few weeks suffering from heavy withdrawals from the red kryptonite. They were getting so bad that Lena had to administer a few medicinal procedures to help her. She was getting better with time but had become jumpy and quieter than usual. Probably why Kara was being so defensive of her.

"Nia may have found where Virtuous is. Or at least where she was. She is working on that. It might take some time. Meanwhile, we need to start moving against Children of Liberty. Lord and Virtuous have been playing both sides of the war. We need to completely finish one before we face other, so that they don't have any chance to comeback."

Kara and Alex nodded at her words while Ten looked at her nervously. "Don't worry Ten. It will be fine. You don't need to fight." Kara consoled Ten, hugging her sideways.

Lena smiled at them before continuing. "For the last week, I have been working out the locations of Children of Liberty hideouts." She told pulling up a map with various locations marked. "They always tend to meet in these places. We need to hit one or two of these. Figure out who the leaders are. I really doubt that they would be able to do much if we cut off their leadership."

"Who is that Agent Liberty? He seems to be the head." Sam put her thought forward.

"Kind of. He is the main puppet. Lord is running everything from behind the scenes. I trailed him a couple of days ago. He is meeting with government officials and army members and putting forward contracts for weapons which could harm all aliens. I got to say, he is playing the part of the beacon of humanity perfectly. Still there are a few other integral figures that we need to take out." Lena explained.

"Maggie found a few suspicious things." Alex told. "Someone is scrambling the police radios. They are never able to call for backup whenever Children of Liberty are attacking something."

"Hmm. Could be carrying jammers. Although other electronics seem to work just fine." Lena mused.

"You all are thinking too hard." Ten voiced softly. "The reason these guys are able to do so much damage is because they are controlling the narrative. If you do not persuade the public, then even if you win, you will be the traitors."

A hush fell over following her statement. Ten had raised a great point. This would have been so much easier if they were not on the top of the wanted list. "But how do you go about that? No one wants to listen to this side." Sam asked.

Ten shrugged at the question. "I don't know. Just a thought."

"CatCo." Kara said after thinking for a while. "They are the only one who has not labelled me as a terrorist. In fact, Cat Grant has effectively said that they won't be publishing anything on this matter until the whole truth has been revealed."

"I-I don't like this idea. It would bring us directly in public's eye. That might help us regain some ground, but we still need to beat Children of Liberty. We will lose the element of surprise by doing this." Lena pointed out.

"I am with Kara on this one." Alex replied. "CatCo seems to be the better option in the long run."

"What is the guarantee that CatCo would even side with us? Too risky if you ask me. We should focus on Children of Liberty first." Sam said.

"We could do both." Kara proposed after thinking for a while. "I am the only one who needs to show my face. Everyone else can go for the targets."

"That's not the point here Kar. If CatCo does not work out, everything could backfire. Badly. It could lead to a trap or someone figuring out this location." Lena remarked.

"We have to take some risks Lee. This is a losing battle. Playing safe is only delaying the final result. Sure, this might backfire and make things worse, but look at the bright side. If it succeeds, then we would finally have a chance. We know that we need to do something different. And I think this is a great start."

Kara finished with determination. Meanwhile, Lena ran various scenarios in her mind. It was true that it could benefit them greatly, but there were so many variables. And she hated the variables. Still, it was not like she had something better planned. "Okay. We can try. But we still need to take out these locations. We need to hurt Children of Liberty as much as possible before you show your face anywhere."

Kara nodded without hesitation. They all spent the next few hours brainstorming the various ways to infiltrate the sites. Slowly, but steadily they had built a solid plan. Lena just hoped that it would work.

Ten was the first to leave, followed by Alex, leaving Kara, Lena and Sam in the room. Sometime during the planning, Kara and Lena had shifted on the couch. Kara had given up on sitting and curled herself into a small ball, her head in Lena's lap, where Lena was softly ministering the knots in her hair.

"This will work, right?" Kara wondered after a long silence.

"It's your plan darling." Lena smiled at her.

"I know. Just having second doubts. I don't want to fail again." Kara sighed at the end of sentence.

"When did you fail?"

"Every time. I should have focused more on Virtuous when I first found out about her. I could have done more while I was in the DEO. I should have finished the job when we fought. I should... Everyone is suffering because of me. You, Sam, Ruby, Ten. I can't do one thing right."

"Where is this coming from?" Lena queried gently. "Cause the last time I checked; I am not complaining."

"And neither am I." Sam voiced from the side.

"I-I-I heard Ruby talking to her friends. She was feeling so sad because they were having fun without her. She- she was crying, and it was because of me." Her voice broke at the end.

"Hey hey hey. That's not your fault. No one here blames you darling. You did so well in the fight. I don't think anyone else would haven even stood a chance. We are here because of Lord and Virtuous. And this is only a matter of time before we get back out. What was the phrase about being at the lowest point?"

"When you are at lowest, the only place to go is up." Kara replied in a shaky voice.

"Exactly. We are almost through this. Don't give up hope now. Okay?"

Kara nodded at her words but stayed silent. Lena gently kissed her forehead and let her hand roam in her hair. Everyone fell silent again. Due to the constant ministrations by Lena, Kara soon fell asleep.

"Man. Why does the universe has it out for her?" Sam asked after a while.

"A question I have been asking for years now." Lena sighed again. They sat in a comfortable silence before Sam stood up.

"What do you want to eat for dinner?" She asked.

"Anything Kara likes. I'll come help you in a bit."

"Sure."

Lena watched Kara's adorable scrunched up face while she slept. The bandages around her arm were the indication that she was still not at her hundred percent, but most of the other wounds had already healed up. It had been a while since she had seen her without any bruises or something broken. She was looking forward to the day when Kara would be completely healed. It was a small thing, but she would gladly take it any day of the week.

She gently picked her head up and replaced her lap with a pillow. The map was still lying there, now with several new markings and notes. She picked it up and told Hope to dim the light before moving out of the room. The next week was going to be make or break for them. Lena just hoped that it was the former, otherwise she was not sure what they were going to do next.


End file.
